,c?v a 
 
 LIBRARY I

 
 ME, GHIM'S DEEAM. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Copyright, 1878, by 
 
 G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 
 
 LONDON I 8. LOW to CO. 
 MDCCCLXXVin.
 
 TROW*S 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING Co*
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 VIGOROUS youth, born replete with 
 energy, courage, and will, grew up 
 into sturdy manhood. Powerful in 
 his physical strength, broad and far-reaching 
 in his views, fervid and lofty in the purposes 
 of his life, keen in his mental acumen, in- 
 genious to the ablest degree, he gathered wealth 
 and power without effort, and steadily gained 
 each higher step of his ambition, tireless and 
 strong. Suddenly there fell a thunderbolt 
 upon him. It thrilled his frame with a 
 bewildering jar, then passed forever as 
 quickly as it came, leaving him scathless, 
 whole, uninjured, but with livid face and 
 congested heart, appalled, stricken in the
 
 yi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 imagination with a profound sense of terror 
 and despair and gloom, which years failed to 
 remove. 
 
 Likewise a nation arose: possessing a 
 sound constitution to begin with, enterprising 
 in the vigor of its youth, developing grandly 
 to maturity, inspired by its own matchless op- 
 portunity for expansion to singular greatness 
 and usefulness- all its aspirations instantly 
 quenched, its abounding energy thunderstruck 
 and gone, years failing to restore it. 
 
 Historians yet to be born will point the 
 finger of commiseration back to this unfor- 
 tunate point, and exclaim : "Ah / if that 
 people at that time had seen themselves as 
 a whole / had realized their united strength / 
 and used it! But they sank into idleness! lost, 
 lost, lost all those years, rather than gain, 
 accumulate, prosper!"
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 T was in the autumn of 1877. 
 
 I had a dream. It must have been 
 a dream. I thought I was living in 
 a land of plenty, yet saw destitution around 
 me in many homes. I was in a country 
 blessed by nature above all other countries 
 on the globe, yet thousands of persons were 
 suffering for want of the necessaries of life. 
 It seemed incredible. I looked more closely, 
 to see if I was really among an enlightened 
 people, or in a half-civilized region. I found 
 I was not in famine-stricken India, but in this 
 bright land of America, with a people sup-
 
 8 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 posed to be enjoying the benefit of civilization 
 and modern improvements ; a country teem- 
 ing with products, and furnishing the gold and 
 silver of the world. Yet many persons were 
 sorely in want. I thought of the universal 
 prosperity that once existed here, though of 
 course I was still dreaming. In this portion 
 of my dream I imagined that only a few years 
 ago this nation was enterprising ; no nation 
 extant had built so much labor-saving ma- 
 chinery. And now this vast enginery was in 
 motion, and numberless human hands were 
 idle. More work was the great want. Not 
 less machinery, but more work. Work for this 
 machinery and for these thousands of men 
 supplanted by machinery. A gigantic enter- 
 prise was in order. No slight enlargement of 
 the existing industries, but a colossal undertak- 
 ing an enterprise absorbing the labor of hun- 
 dreds of thousands of men now yearning for 
 work,
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 9 
 
 My mind was soon fixed upon a certain 
 wonderful plan of my own for the removal of 
 the whole great trouble. It was all a dream, 
 but such an extraordinary dream I must relate 
 it, though it may fill an entire volume. 
 
 I dreamed that away back in my youth I had 
 conceived the building of a huge structure 
 which the world needed, and all along through 
 the years I had carefully considered the enter- 
 prise, until now the opportune period had come 
 for its grand fulfillment. It was too great a 
 project to be undertaken in times when labor 
 and capital were busily employed, before the 
 era of mighty and multitudinous labor-saving 
 inventions ; but every condition now was 
 as favorable as possibly could be to the carry- 
 ing out of this tremendous plan of mine. 
 
 It was a vast engineering work, so differ- 
 ent from any ever attempted or thought 
 of by mortal man, that civil engineers would 
 stand aghast at the mere proposal of it.
 
 io MR. GHIMS DREAM. 
 
 And the building of the colossal structure 
 I planned would employ the labor of 
 so many thousands and thousands of men, 
 and would present to the view of the world 
 so gigantic an embodiment of usefulness 
 when completed, that a contemplation of 
 the achievement was among the sublimi- 
 ties. And the reflection that this great 
 enterprise must, by employing so much of 
 the surplus labor, not only be a benefit to 
 those employed, but restore the industrial 
 balance which is now disturbed, thus re- 
 viving business and checking the annual 
 waste of millions through the non-per- 
 formance of work which might be per- 
 formed this reflection swept through me 
 like an inspiration ! 
 
 It was not an upstart scheme. I had 
 been deliberating the subject so many years 
 in silence, calmly awaiting the proper time 
 for carrying out the project, there was
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. n 
 
 nothing sudden in the enterprise itself. It 
 was a fully matured plan, strengthened by 
 contemplation and reasoning and observa- 
 tion regarding this one especial purpose, un- 
 til it had grown into a settled design. And 
 now it was to be accomplished! I saw 
 the lofty ambition of my life realized ! 
 Wildly, intensely, ecstatically I dreamed ! 
 
 Though I deplored the suffering which 
 came from the great lack of employment, 
 yet I saw that this dark state of things 
 was the very condition essential to prepare 
 the way for my great undertaking. It 
 seemed providential. The more extensive 
 and painful the distress, the more readily I 
 should be able to remove the whole fell 
 difficulty at one stroke, by furnishing count- 
 less numbers of workmen employment and 
 wages in building the mighty structure I 
 saw in my mind's eye. And thus it would 
 serve a doubly useful purpose.
 
 12 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 f 
 
 Building the immense structure would 
 furnish so much employment, workingmen 
 would favor the enterprise unanimously. 
 And as it would furnish employment to a 
 vast amount of capital, also now idle, mon- 
 eyed men would only need to be convinced 
 of its practicability, and capital would flow 
 to it in abundance. Therefore, to engage 
 the interest of moneyed men in favor 
 of the enterprise was the first proceed- 
 ing and the only one necessary to in- 
 sure its accomplishment. A great deal 
 depends, thought I in my dream, upon the 
 manner in which capital is sought to be 
 enlisted in its favor. Many worthy schemes 
 have failed for lack of skillful management. 
 The right method will win, and the wrong 
 method will not win, the confidence it de- 
 serves. I will personally take my plan to 
 some of the leading capitalists. (Oh, I 
 wish I had a hundred million dollars my-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 13 
 
 self !) I will go in person to the most 
 affluent, one by one, and I will convince 
 them all, beyond a fraction of a doubt, 
 that this stupendous project of mine is 
 destined to be accomplished, and that it 
 will prove the most useful measure of ad- 
 vance made in this century. I do not 
 possess the command of stately language 
 or fine rhetoric, but I can express myself 
 clearly and practically. I do not expect 
 or wish to convince immediately any one. 
 I would not waste my time detailing a pro- 
 ject to a man who would instantly agree 
 with me upon an undertaking entirely new 
 and so gigantic. He would as quickly 
 change again to the opposite opinion. The 
 deliberate, careful, gradual acceptance of my 
 view, and then an enthusiastic maintenance 
 of it, is the sterling kind of support I so- 
 licit. I have been long years developing 
 my own fervid conclusions regarding the
 
 U MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 matter, and cannot reasonably hope for a 
 sudden brilliant conversion of the world 
 upon it. If I go to a millionaire, and 
 he patiently hears me a couple of hours, 
 and then deliberately calls me an idiot, I 
 shall put that millionaire's name on my list 
 as one who will come out a staunch sup- 
 porter of my enterprise in due time. And 
 if the next millionaire to whom I unfold 
 my plan accepts it eagerly without thought, 
 I shall consider his name as that of a man 
 not worth while putting on my list ; for, 
 when the time comes to issue the stock, 
 such a quickly-changing man will more 
 likely be penniless than rich. I do not 
 want impulsive, fickle men for the sup- 
 port of this huge work. All would tum- 
 ble, all would sink. I want solid, strong 
 men ; men of weight ; men of breadth ; 
 men of slow, sound judgment ; men who 
 can deliberately take in a great idea, and
 
 MR. GfffM'S DREAM. 15 
 
 calmly consider it on its own merits ; men 
 of comprehensive grasp in their perceptions 
 of the future ; men who steadily, through 
 all panics, believe in progress ; men who 
 are able to discern a great opportunity, and 
 fill it with a great enterprise : these are 
 the men of whom I seek audience. 
 
 In my own city of Boston there were 
 such millionaires, and a number elsewhere. 
 Among the latter were two in the Empire 
 State, whom I wished to consult first of all. 
 These were William H. Vanderbilt and Jay 
 Gould. I visited Vanderbilt first. I man- 
 aged to obtain one whole evening with him, 
 and, after a two hours' presentation of my 
 grand plan, I found him as thoroughly con- 
 servative and cautious as I had desired ; as 
 skeptical regarding the feasibility of my 
 transcendent undertaking as I had antici- 
 pated. All was well. Had he ardently coin- 
 cided with me in my huge notion in so short
 
 16 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 a time, never having thought of the great 
 subject before, I should have passed away 
 from his presence utterly dejected, feeling 
 that the stoutest support I had hoped to 
 win was, after all, but a mere weak, supple, 
 fickle, poor prop. I should have vanished 
 from his sight forevermore. But his cool 
 unbelief in my project at the outset, his 
 sturdy remark that he couldn't think of it, 
 encouraged me in my opinion that he would 
 think of it, that he was just the man to 
 think of it, and the one man whose think- 
 ing of it would lead to the surest material 
 results. 
 
 Vanderbilt was the mortal on whom 
 my highest hopes rested and' centered. 
 Around him a throng of moneyed men were 
 to gather and unite in the vast enterprise 
 I had planned for the good of the world ! 
 The towering wealth of Vanderbilt was to 
 rise to the apex of the glittering pile de-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 17 
 
 voted to the high purpose of rousing Pro- 
 gress from its four years' stupid slumber, 
 and putting together a structure so massive, 
 so useful, so thoroughly unique, that its 
 construction would be one signal step for- 
 ward in the march of mankind. 
 
 I had met with the highest degree of 
 success I deemed possible in that brief 
 space, and was feeling in a perfectly satis- 
 factory frame of mind at the end of my 
 first visit to the man who was destined to 
 become the most powerful supporter of my 
 plan. 
 
 Whatever his thoughts were at the time, 
 however compassionate the smile upon his 
 face as I left him, my faith in his ultimate 
 acquiescence was complete. Before making 
 a second visit, I allowed him a week to think 
 of my plan, or not think of it, as he pleased, 
 knowing that he must think of it, that the 
 subject was too momentous for any person
 
 1 8 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 who had once considered it a moment ever 
 to forget it. The project at any time would 
 be stunning; and at this particular time, 
 when the welfare of millions of working- 
 men directly, and all other persons indi- 
 rectly, depended upon whether sufficient em- 
 ployment was to be furnished or not, a use- 
 ful enterprise involving the labor of so con- 
 siderable a number was too important to 
 be dropped as unworthy of consideration. 
 Every man would think of it. The world 
 over, it would be the unfailing topic of con- 
 versation. And if I were to publish a little 
 brochure upon it, a compendious statement 
 of the subject in all its bearings, hundreds 
 of thousands of copies would be sold ! For 
 it was the most important subject before 
 the people. 
 
 Giving Mr. Vanderbilt a few days to 
 think of it (in the intervals between the 
 busy hours of railroad management press-
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 19 
 
 ing upon him), I decided to lay my plan 
 open to the keen intellect of Jay Gould 
 in the meantime. But when I went to see 
 him he was out of town. 
 
 I deferred attacking Jay Gould with my 
 stunning scheme until I could catch him 
 at home. 
 
 I next called on Robert B. Roosevelt. 
 I knew that Roosevelt would become an 
 earnest advocate of my project. Roosevelt 
 is a man of progress, in spite of his strange 
 affiliations with the pull-back statesmen. 
 His views on the labor question had always 
 agreed with mine, and, though I had never 
 yet mentioned to him my prodigious scheme, 
 yet I was sure that after I had stunned 
 him with it, and after he had considered 
 it well, he would come out strongly in its 
 favor, as every sensible man of progress 
 would. Roosevelt especially, as Roosevelt 
 is a singularly far-seeing, practical, level-
 
 20 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 headed man, as well as a wide-awake, go- 
 ahead, nineteenth-century man. Some other 
 members of Congress I knew were equally in 
 harmony with the constructive spirit of the 
 age, and I was confident of their patriotic 
 support of my great enterprise if Govern- 
 ment should be solicited to favor it. 
 
 My interview with Roosevelt happens to 
 be one of the haziest portions of my dream, 
 but my next experience rolls before me 
 clearly. 
 
 The sudden acquaintance I formed with 
 George Law is so vivid in my remem- 
 brance that I shall not forget it for two 
 hundred years. I happened to be walking 
 by this great millionaire's house on Fifth 
 Avenue, when the veritable Live Oak George 
 himself happened to be entering. He was 
 one of the millionaires whom I had intended 
 to visit last and least, I felt so exceedingly 
 dubious about ever trying to move such an
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 21 
 
 invincible nature as I had understood his 
 to be ; but some kind angel directed my 
 steps to this particular spot at this auspi- 
 cious moment, and impressed me that this 
 was the very nick of time to tackle the 
 six-foot possessor of six million dollars, and 
 assured me that he should be one of the 
 first to be won to my cause. 
 
 Confidently turning toward this great mil- 
 lionaire, I followed him up the steps, and 
 accosted him just before he passed his 
 threshold. 
 
 " I have called to see Mr. Law. Perhaps 
 he is not at home." 
 
 " No, he's not. He'll be in in a moment, 
 though," said he, stepping in. Evidently a 
 mirthful mood was on him. 
 
 " Now he is in, isn't he ?" I queried. 
 
 "Yes. Who ain't you?" 
 
 "The Czar of all Rhode Island. Can I 
 see Live Oak George about two hours?"
 
 22 MR. GtffM'S DREAM. 
 
 Had I said only about two minutes, I 
 should have made a diplomatic fiasco. But 
 two hours ! Two hours of his precious time ! 
 The greatness of the request prevailed over 
 his stern opposition. The strangeness of my 
 suggestion rendered him more eccentric. He 
 drew me in like a prodigal son. 
 
 " Two hours !" he ejaculated, sinking upon 
 a sofa, and pointing out a great arm-chair 
 to me. 
 
 " Are you a lightning-rod fiend ?" quoth 
 he, suddenly rising. 
 
 I quieted him down. 
 
 " Or a book-peddling nuisance ?" roared 
 he, jumping up again. 
 
 I calmed the lion down once more. 
 
 "Well, how much money did you s'pose 
 you were going to borrow ?" 
 
 " I have a grander purpose in coming 
 here Mr. Law !" 
 
 " Incredible ! I take it you are a tramp
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 23 
 
 of some kind, high or low. Well, what is 
 your grand purpose ?" 
 
 For two hours I poured into this great 
 man's ears the details of a plan so mighty 
 in its scope that he was almost bewildered. 
 Flinging himself upon the sofa, apparently 
 overwhelmed by the pressure of something 
 greater than he could bear, gazing up at the 
 ceiling or glaring down at the floor in utter 
 amazement, sometimes rousing himself and 
 pacing the room for awhile, stopping now 
 and then to fix his astonished eyes on me, 
 silently hearing every word I spoke, and 
 evidently willing to ponder deeply every 
 idea I broached, though sometimes shaking 
 his head in all directions, and holding it 
 now and then between his hands and press- 
 ing it hard, and then approaching me and 
 feeling of me, to see if I were really a 
 human being standing there and talking to 
 him, or only a wild phantom of his brain ;
 
 24 MR, GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 dropping again upon the sofa confounded, 
 yet wide awake and intently alert thus the 
 two hours passed, bringing to me the sat- 
 isfactory conclusion that he had listened to 
 every word I said, that we had not once 
 been disturbed by any one coming in, that 
 I had transmitted into George Law's deep 
 and level understanding, in regular order, 
 the entire series of thoughts I had wished 
 to plant there at my first interview, and 
 now those ideas were sure of subsequent 
 reflection. 
 
 To depart immediately was the next step 
 in my programme. To leave him to calm 
 meditation, in silence and alone, while my 
 grand project was glowing in his recollec- 
 tion. 
 
 " I will call again in a week," I quickly 
 remarked, and was making an abrupt exit 
 He detained me. 
 
 " Call again now," he demanded. " Sit down.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM, 25 
 
 Young man, you are perfectly astounding 
 with that insane project of yours. Yet the 
 plan looks reasonable. Of course it ain't 
 reasonable ; of course it's only a madman's 
 freak ; but I couldn't help listening, and 
 you almost exploded me with that stupen- 
 dous scheme. My head feels as big as an 
 empty flour barrel. Couldn't you have told 
 me half at a time ? Oh ! it is too much ! 
 too much ! Ah ! I am going to die !" 
 
 " So am I, some time. But it is no use 
 whatever to die now, Mr. Law. Wait till 
 you have helped to carry out this gigantic 
 work, and seen it in successful operation." 
 
 " If I live till then I'll be as old as 
 Methuselah is," he pleasantly remarked. 
 
 I anticipated seeing Live Oak George in 
 due time as staunch a supporter of my huge 
 enterprise as Vanderbilt himself. 
 
 I left him for a week and interviewed 
 other millionaires,
 
 a6 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 I have not yet told the reader what my 
 great project was. I cannot inject it here, 
 in a paragraph or two. It requires con- 
 siderable space and time. I stipulated for 
 two hours' time on presenting the subject 
 to Mr. Law and Mr. Vanderbilt. The 
 time which I expect of the reader for a 
 similar purpose will begin when we reach 
 another chapter. Meanwhile I wish to de- 
 scribe briefly my experience with other mill- 
 ionaires whom I converted to my scheme. 
 
 Soon after Jay Gould returned to town I 
 took myself into his presence, timing my 
 call auspiciously, securing the desired two 
 hours' interview. 
 
 The ponderous George Law was the mill- 
 ionaire I had last encountered ; here was a 
 different kind of a bear to meet. Jay 
 Gould is as little as George Law is big, and 
 as far the opposite as can be in the impres- 
 sion he makes upon you. The greater does
 
 MR. GfffM'S DREAM. 27 
 
 not invite your approach, but when once 
 within the radiation of his great heart you 
 feel yourself perfectly at home, and you 
 have a strong liking for the old gentleman. 
 Jay Gould attracts, you in quite another 
 way ; his diminutive body is topped with a 
 mighty intellect, the glance of which from 
 his keen eyes fascinates and lures you to- 
 ward him, and holds you at a certain dis- 
 tance from him. If you would approach 
 nearer, you must gain access to his nature 
 by addressing yourself to his head, and not 
 to his heart Waste no sentiment here, 
 but if you have any superb money-making 
 enterprise in view, fortified by sound reason- 
 ing and logical deductions, he will listen 
 willingly. He discerns the foundation of 
 things, and sees clearly if matters there 
 are solid and substantial. It is a broad 
 measure of pure mentality which controls 
 him, with no animality involved in it to
 
 28 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 restrain it, or be restrained by it. If you 
 have any scheme for his consideration, he 
 knows by intuition whether it is worthy 
 or unworthy. Whether it is feasible or not 
 he will determine afterward, but with greater 
 promptness than any other man. Of all 
 the millionaires I interviewed, he was the eas- 
 iest man to talk to, the quickest thinker, the 
 readiest to grasp the far-reaching possibilities 
 suggested by the great scheme with which 
 I plied him. Regarding its feasibility, he 
 was as cautious as man can be. But I 
 wished him to be wary in that regard un- 
 til he had deliberately thought over the 
 subject at divers times and under various 
 circumstances, that he might the more 
 slowly and surely develop a strong, tena- 
 cious, unflinching adhesion to the enterprise. 
 He did not express an opinion for or 
 against it during my first interview, and I 
 was careful not to disturb the delicate poise
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. . 29 
 
 by questioning him. I went my way, giv- 
 ing him a week to revolve the scheme in 
 his busy brain. 
 
 Returning to my first millionaire at the 
 expiration of a week from the time of my 
 former call, I found Mr. Vanderbilt smiling 
 and genial, as glad to see me as if I had 
 been a two-tailed monkey or any other cu- 
 riosity, and a very little more inclined to 
 consider my monstrous scheme than he 
 was before. 
 
 " Your plan seems to me impracticable," 
 said Vanderbilt, "but even if it were a 
 feasible undertaking, I am not the man who 
 should enter largely into it. My money is 
 all in railroads. Idle capital is what you 
 want to secure. Enlist that all in your 
 enterprise, and then you can begin to try 
 to go ahead. How could I do anything ?" 
 
 "Sell out." 
 
 He was astounded. But I meant exactly 
 what I said, and I repeated it.
 
 30 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 " Sell out. Have done with railroads ! 
 Embark your immense fortune in this huge 
 enterprise looming up. Take hold of it 
 now in its incipiency ; profit accordingly. 
 Don't wait till the embryo has grown, and 
 others control it. Manage it yourself. You 
 have the first chance, the best chance if you 
 avail yourself of the present opportunity. 
 Sell out; let idle capital buy your rail- 
 roads; throw your vast fortune into this 
 new industrial enterprise. You will thus 
 rise to a higher, broader business. And in 
 it you will be honored as the pioneer of 
 a new era. You can make it immensely 
 profitable, too. You will be president of 
 the company, the largest stockholder, the 
 controller of affairs. Drop railroads, and 
 take up " 
 
 At this point we were interrupted by a 
 useless annoyance in the shape of a caller, 
 who, I vehemently remarked to myself,
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 31 
 
 called upon an errand not one thousandth 
 part as important as mine, whatever his was. 
 When he was gone we resumed. 
 
 " Mr. Vanderbilt," said I, " this depression 
 in business and industry, with the great suf- 
 fering caused by it, seems to me entirely 
 needless. With all the deference I can feel 
 toward the prevalent opinion that this is a 
 necessary state of things, a healthy reaction 
 from extravagance, coming down to hard- 
 pan, knowing where we are, and so forth 
 I cannot but look at the matter in a very 
 different light. People in general do not 
 view the situation as it really is. They 
 think it complicated and beyond their capac- 
 ity to understand, whereas it is perfectly 
 simple and easy to understand by any one 
 who can think. This is the practical way 
 I view the matter: A few years ago we 
 had real prosperity ; not fictitious, as many 
 claim, but real prosperity. We can regain
 
 32 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 it at once if we begin at once the right 
 course. If these multitudes of mechanics 
 and others now idle had employment in 
 their respective mechanical and other occu- 
 pations, their work would add many mill- 
 ion dollars' worth yearly to the solid wealth 
 of the world, and that would be prosperity 
 again. The work they might do is not 
 done, the wealth they would add to the 
 world is not added ; the absolutely neces- 
 sary work is all that is now being done ; 
 no progress is being made ; a stoppage has 
 come; this depression is not a healthy state 
 of things. The decrease in business, and tke 
 decrease in accumulation of wealth, bring 
 hard times to the wealthy, and harder times 
 to the poor. Yet the means for doing work, 
 the means for accumulating wealth, are 
 more numerous than ever before. We have 
 stopped using the means. Is this a healthy 
 state of things ? It is evident to me that
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 33 
 
 industries must enlarge and multiply. The 
 world is progressing. To check it is dan- 
 gerous, and just that danger exists. Again 
 we must advance, and speedily. Retrograd- 
 ing does not improve our condition. 
 
 " We have been retrograding four years. 
 Look at the result. It is wholly unprofit- 
 able. Retrograding is the wrong course. 
 Were it the right course, we should see 
 prosperity, accumulation, contentment, in- 
 stead of what we do see. The fact that 
 affairs have been steadily growing worse in- 
 dicates that the people have been steadily 
 going wrong, steadily trying to carry out a 
 mistaken idea. Attributing the hard times 
 to the kind of money in use, and to every- 
 thing but the real cause, the fundamental 
 principle of the whole matter is ignored. 
 Labor-saving inventions have created a new 
 era ! We must act accordingly. Machinery 
 has wrought a revolution in the results of
 
 34 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 industry. We must adapt ourselves to the 
 age of machinery, and make use of our 
 immense facilities. Huge industrial enter- 
 prises must be engaged in. Useful or use- 
 less in themselves, they will start business, 
 and thus awaken all industries to their nor- 
 mal activity. The war kept us busy awhile ; 
 rebuilding burnt cities kept us busy awhile. 
 Meantime, labor-saving inventions were mul- 
 tiplying as never before. And now, with 
 immense mechanical power, and so little 
 for it to do, activity has subsided, business 
 has fallen flat. Work is needed ! a vast 
 amount of work ! Start a great enterprise 
 requiring the labor of a vast number of 
 men, and Progress will resume its function 
 of leading mankind onward to grander en- 
 terprises still. The past has been a career 
 of glorious progress, and shall not the fu- 
 ture be also ? My project may seem to 
 you now chimerical, ridiculous, impossible
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 35 
 
 to carry out But every new step in ad- 
 vance has been an amazing, stunning step. 
 Every project has been incredible until ac- 
 complished. And now shall the world stop? 
 Stagnation is death. We must go on, enter 
 upon new incredible works, each one 
 greater than the last What shall be the 
 next one ? There will be one ; what shall 
 it be ? Here are a myriad of unemployed 
 workmen aching to work, to construct some- 
 thing, anything useful, some new embodi- 
 ment of the world's progress, whatever it 
 may be, however large or costly. The 
 labor will be labor well bestowed, and the 
 capital invested will do the noblest service 
 capital ever performed." 
 
 " You want to raise a hundred millions ? 
 It is a large sum." 
 
 " The Suez Canal cost over eighty mill- 
 ions." 
 
 " How much ?"
 
 36 MR. GJTSM'S DREAM. 
 
 " The exact cost was $80,893)665. My 
 project calls for a sum not very much 
 larger, and its usefulness will be immeasura- 
 bly greater!" 
 
 Our talk was protracted, and repeated 
 with variations, at hebdomadal intervals, un- 
 til in a few weeks I had the satisfaction of 
 seeing Vanderbilt thoroughly convinced in 
 favor of the gigantic enterprise I had 
 planned. He sold over fifty million dol- 
 lars' worth of his railroad stock, gradually, 
 privately, and realized its full value. Then 
 he earnestly entered upon the work of 
 chartering the new company for the new 
 business, with a hundred million dollars of 
 capital as a basis, of which he furnished 
 more than half, and thus gained a control- 
 ling interest. 
 
 In the meantime I had been drumming 
 up custom from other millionaires, persuad- 
 ing them to go into the enterprise with
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 37 
 
 their mites, some five millions, some four, 
 some two, some only one little million. I 
 pursued the same general method in con- 
 vincing each, varying the details of my 
 operations according to the whimsical char- 
 acteristics of the different men, but success- 
 ful with every one. I visited August Bel- 
 mont, the Lorillards, Fred. Stevens, Moses 
 Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, James Lennox, 
 Mr. Kernochan, Mr. Rhinelander, and all 
 the leading millionaires of New York who 
 were at home. 
 
 Alexander T. Stewart was dead, but Alex- 
 ander Stuart was living and worth five mill- 
 ion dollars. I called upon the great sugar 
 refiner at his time-honored place of abode 
 in the lower part of New York, and found 
 him a pleasant old bachelor, willing to lis- 
 ten to my project, and after several inter- 
 views a believer in it, though strongly op- 
 posed to new-fangled notions in general.
 
 38 MR. CHIMES DREAM. 
 
 Whatever was really and indisputably use- 
 ful he believed in, and for that reason he 
 could not but admit that my plan was 
 deserving of success. He gave it solid 
 support in the form of four millions he 
 subscribed to the stock, and put a provis- 
 ion in his will whereby in case of his death 
 that money could not be withdrawn from 
 that purpose. Having no family of his own, 
 he willed that amount to me. I being 
 thoroughly committed to the great enter- 
 prise, of course I would put the four mill- 
 ions into it, while any one else might or 
 might not. The legacy in prospect was 
 such an entirely unexpected honor to me, 
 that when I was first informed of it I was 
 too deeply moved to say a word, and could 
 only silently think how gratefully I should 
 revere his memory as long as he lived, 
 and how filially I should write and publish 
 his biography after he was dead.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 39 
 
 I had some difficulty in convincing this 
 gentleman in the first place that many 
 mechanics are out of employment and in 
 poverty through no fault of their own. 
 Self-made millionaires are so apt to suppose 
 that any man could have been equally suc- 
 cessful. Successful men are so unwilling to 
 believe that there are men of less capacity. 
 It was the capacity of this man, together 
 with the Scotch-Irish force which runs in 
 his veins, that enabled him to be so emi- 
 nently successful. 
 
 Many have wondered why a man of such 
 immense property has never married. He 
 told me the reason one day, in strict con- 
 dence, and so I will repeat it. The great 
 sugar refiner said his whole life had been 
 among sweet things ; and even when he was 
 a boy, peddling sugar -candy, he became so 
 satiated with sweet things he could never 
 afterward love anything sweet.
 
 40 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 The other great sugar refiner, his brother, 
 Robert L. Stuart, a few years older than 
 my great benefactor, I found dwelling in a 
 magnificent residence on Fifth Avenue, 
 beguiling the leisure of his threescore 
 years and ten in sumptuous style. He, 
 too, has acquired between five and six mill- 
 ions ; and he, too, after several pleasant in- 
 terviews, entered solidly into my great en- 
 terprise, putting down his name for four 
 millions. 
 
 I was sure of Peter Cooper. A progressive 
 man of infinite versatility ; the designer and 
 builder of the first locomotive constructed 
 in America; successful in every business un- 
 dertaking of his life so far (though he is only 
 eighty-six) ; a man who has made money 
 as grocer, coachmaker, cabinetmaker, and in 
 various greater capacities ; the originator of 
 the anthracite puddling process; the builder 
 of immense ironworks ; the owner of a
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 41 
 
 glue factory ; the president of a great 
 mining company ; an enterprising philan- 
 thropist, always thinking of the poor, and 
 spending freely to promote the welfare of 
 the industrial classes I knew that the 
 founder of Cooper Institute would not re- 
 quire urging to support a useful enterprise 
 that would give employment to a vast 
 number in pressing need of it. Even 
 from him I did not look for an imme- 
 diate indorsement of my stunning scheme. 
 I expected the genial old gentleman's blue 
 eyes would stare in astonishment at me, 
 and so they did. I anticipated that his 
 kindly and benevolent visage would work 
 itself up into something like a sneer to 
 begin with, and so it did. I guessed he 
 would double his tall form with mirth at 
 my incredible project, and shake the whiten- 
 ing locks of thin brown hair which hang 
 to his shoulders, and bend his fragile neck
 
 42 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 again and again to gaze down at me over 
 his noble Roman nose, in perfect astonish- 
 ment at the gigantic enterprise I origi- 
 nated, and so he did. The great originator 
 of enterprises himself was more completely 
 taken aback by the magnitude of mine 
 than some of the other millionaires I con- 
 fronted with it ; but I knew he only needed 
 time to think it over, and Peter Cooper 
 would come out one of my most enthu- 
 siastic advocates. In due time he threw 
 his whole soul into the worthy enterprise, 
 and threw in several million dollars besides. 
 " My dear Ghim ," said he, " if it wasn't 
 for my glue factory, now, I would put in 
 a million more ; but I must stick to my 
 glue." 
 
 Joshua Montgomery Sears, of Boston, 
 the ardent young millionaire, with the fer- 
 vor of twenty-two bright summers and 
 love's young dream besides thrilling through
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 43 
 
 him, was about to take his lovely bride on 
 a trip to Europe. At present he was 
 travelling in this country. The day before 
 his departure from these shores I had a 
 long and uninterrupted interview, and directed 
 the surplus force of his youthful ardor to 
 the contemplation of the vast enterprise I 
 had in mind. It was a fitting season, 
 for during his voyage he contemplated the 
 project unceasingly ; and he mailed me an 
 earnest letter the day he arrived out, declar- 
 ing he would put every dollar of his sev- 
 eral millions into my thoroughly useful un- 
 dertaking. 
 
 William Emerson Baker, the eccentric sew- 
 ing-machine millionaire, of Ridge Hill fame, 
 required but three efforts on my part to con- 
 vince him of the wisdom of putting four mill- 
 ions into my magnificent enterprise. On the 
 day of my first visit to this merry genius at 
 his vast estate in Wellesley, Mass., he was
 
 44 MR. GHIWS DREAM. 
 
 seriously contemplating through his eye-glass 
 the intention of putting another million into 
 a new piggery, the recently-built luxurious 
 edifice having become carelessly soiled by 
 the tenants. They had rooted up the Brus- 
 sels, tarnished the satin-covered sofas they 
 had sat in, tipped over the rosewood chairs 
 in itching to scratch their backs, made 
 havoc with the downy feather beds and 
 lace curtains, reared up and swept off all 
 the articles of vertu from the malachite 
 mantelpieces, walk>wed like sixty in the fire 
 in the fire-places, thus blackening even the 
 snowy white cornices and the orrtate fres- 
 coes, and in every way injuring the mar- 
 ket value of their palatial mansion. The 
 owner of these unruly slaves was cogitat- 
 ing and deciding whether to build them a 
 new habitation, or exchange them for edu- 
 cated hogs. I persuaded him to cut them 
 up into little square pieces and put them
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 45 
 
 into bean-pots in his Institute of Cookery, 
 and invest all his extra millions of dollars 
 in the grand project my own unique genius 
 had originated. The pigs when defunct com- 
 prised a larger pile of comestibles than could 
 be devoured at his enormous grange at 
 Wellesley and his Chester Square residence 
 in Boston put together ; so he issued in- 
 vitations to a splendid funeral, and had all 
 the Governors of all the States, and all the 
 people of the Southern States who hap- 
 pened to be north of Mason and Dixon's 
 line, gathered at Ridge Hill Farm to par- 
 take of pork and beans. A great deal was 
 left over, sent into Boston, and given away. 
 Boston will have pork and beans for years 
 to come. 
 
 I called upon all the principal million- 
 aires in Boston and vicinity, one by one, 
 and secured them all in favor of my stu- 
 pendous undertaking.
 
 46 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Charles Francis Adams, dwelling a few 
 miles out, on his ancient estate in Quincy, 
 Mass., put three millions into my great pro- 
 ject. This rich man's sons all became advo- 
 cates of the enterprise, aiding it by the rich- 
 ness of their wit, their energy, and their 
 numbers. 
 
 A remarkable coincidence occurred one 
 day. I was at home, and my thoughts were 
 running upon the destitution and misery of 
 thousands of persons in my family (the 
 great human family), especially the poor 
 circumstances of various persons whom I 
 happened to know personally. I was think- 
 ing of the suffering I had seen them ex- 
 perience from day to day, and how painful 
 it was to me to look at my own poverty 
 and find that I had not the means to re- 
 lieve them, and hardly knew how I was 
 going to get bread myself. Many a time 
 I had thus meditated sadly on the wretch-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 47 
 
 edness I knew existed around me, seeing 
 it myself and partaking of it myself, and 
 knowing that one thing would remove it, 
 just one thing would put happiness in many 
 spots where now unhappiness lingers, and 
 that one thing was money. I was ponder- 
 ing on my urgent need of money when 
 lo, there came to my poverty-stricken home 
 the greatest blessing in disguise that ever 
 fell to my lot. It was a pair of twins ! 
 Here I was, sunk in the very depth of 
 pecuniary want, having been unfortunate in 
 business, and having used up all the few 
 little dollars I had remaining for the pur- 
 pose of making that highly important jour- 
 ney among the millionaires in New York 
 and elsewhere, and now I had come home 
 with the exultation of knowing that I had 
 been successful and my colossal enterprise 
 was under way, but at the same time with 
 the dire feeling that I knew not where-
 
 48 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 withal I could purchase bread which comes 
 so handy when hungry, and pay the little 
 rent of the little room which is so much 
 more convenient to occupy than living out- 
 doors. By and by, when I had carried out 
 my grand plan, everything would be lovely 
 for everybody, but the interim looked dubi- 
 ously empty for me. At this awful juncture 
 of affairs I was blessed with that sudden 
 pair of twins ! They came so unexpectedly, 
 my joy was such that I can scarcely de- 
 scribe it. But I shall never forget it. I 
 think no man ever received a pair of twins 
 with more astonishment or with feelings 
 more intense and deep than were mine in 
 that exceedingly depressed state of my 
 finances. Yet I welcomed the twins with a 
 fondness as real and as passionate as ever 
 mortal experienced ; and I solemnly declared 
 that they were Heaven-sent gifts. I am not 
 a married man ; that pair of twins came
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM: 49 
 
 to me by mail ; they were sent by Peter 
 Cooper and George Law, and consisted 
 of two twelve-thousand-dollar checks! That 
 was a pair of twins worth having ; they 
 were useful to a poor man ; they were worth 
 caressing. The coincidence I noticed was 
 that they came together, and were just the 
 same size. Both of them were the same 
 size. The wonder was, not that the great 
 philanthropist, Peter Cooper, divined my 
 needs, and sent me a few thousand dollars, 
 for there was nothing remarkable or unnat- 
 ural in that; nor that the great heart of 
 George Law moved him likewise, for there 
 was nothing wrong in that, and nothing sur- 
 prising; but that both happened to do the 
 same thing at the same time this was the 
 wonderful coincidence. They never made a 
 wiser investment. That money did an im- 
 mense amount of good. It enabled me to 
 continue with greater advantage my indefa."
 
 50 MR. GfffM'S DREAM. 
 
 tigable efforts in behalf of the huge pro- 
 ject I had set on foot, as it supplied me with 
 the means of going and coming wherever 
 I desired, without the oppressive draw- 
 back of impecuniousness. Furthermore, it 
 enabled me to begin to eat three square 
 meals a day. Better than all, it was instru- 
 mental in brightening sad faces my heart 
 had ached in beholding day after day ; in 
 removing some who had been tied by stress 
 of circumstances to unhealthful occupations, 
 and were dying down ; in relieving necessi- 
 ties I had been forced to witness, power- 
 less to relieve till now, wtfere want was so 
 extreme that tears of sadness were changed 
 to tears of gratitude by a five-dollar bill. 
 It often started my own tears when I looked 
 upon the change wrought the happy homes 
 that had been dreary, the cheerful faces that 
 had been woe-begone, the hopeful hearts 
 that were recently in despair. And the
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 51 
 
 credit of it all was due to Peter Cooper 
 and George Law. If they had not manu- 
 factured and sent me that pair of twins 
 
 But I must return to the main subject, 
 the magnificent plan I had conceived for 
 the advancement of mankind one single 
 step. I fancied that when that important 
 step I suggested had been taken, and as a 
 result of my labors to that end I had some- 
 how become a millionaire myself, twelve- 
 thousand-dollar checks would seem paltry, 
 and I should be giving instead of receiv- 
 ing these little munificences. 
 
 A session of Congress was approaching, 
 and I went to Washington, not to lobby 
 any claim through, for I had secured else- 
 where all the influence my project needed ; 
 I had no favors to ask of Congress ; I 
 went there for my own diversion, as a re- 
 laxation from the earnest endeavors I had 
 been making among millionaires ; and at
 
 5* MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 the same time to edify upon that particular 
 topic of mine any of the great ones of 
 the earth whom chance might throw in my 
 way at Washington. 
 
 Meeting President Hayes one day in La- 
 fayette Square, I expounded to him the 
 great subject which filled my mind ; and 
 calling upon him a few times afterward 
 at his house when he did not happen to 
 be travelling in a little while I numbered 
 him among the earnest believers in my 
 scheme. President Tilden was travelling in 
 Europe, but during his absence President 
 Hayes was assiduously performing the du- 
 ties of Chief Magistrate of this country, 
 being constantly in every part of it. Not 
 waiting for President Tilden's return, I sent 
 him a cable dispatch containing an inkling 
 of my colossal scheme. It brought him 
 home by the next steamer. I soon won 
 his confidence in favor of my gigantic en- 
 terprise. He put a barrel of money into it.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 53 
 
 Looking down from the Senate gallery 
 one day upon the famous hyacinthine lock 
 which tumbles gracefully adown the brow 
 of New York's intellectual giant, I be- 
 thought me of going down into the lobby, 
 sending in my card, and calling him out 
 for an interview. But the wild animals 
 down in the pit before me were suddenly 
 stirred into animation by the intense inter- 
 est of some utterance made among them, 
 and the Utica lion was glaring so fiercely 
 at the Georgia lion, the occasion was inop- 
 portune ; I waited till the following day. 
 All was quiet then. Gordon was not rous- 
 ing them ; Edmunds was not stinging 
 them ; Patterson was not grilling them ; 
 Morrill was lulling them. There was Sen- 
 ator Conkling, cleaning his finger-nails, as 
 usual. I was close to the Diplomatic 
 gallery, just above him. I glanced across 
 the Chamber before going down into the
 
 54 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 lobby. Over in the Reporters' gallery 
 were various journalists. Leaning over 
 the middle was one who always attracts 
 attention, and always ought to. He is the 
 ablest thinker and writer that walks into 
 the Senate Chamber, above or below. His 
 practical insight, of matters in general and 
 matters in particular, surpasses that of a 
 dozen Senators combined. His power of 
 penetration is marvellous. He is a keen 
 ferret, a detective whom you need not 
 hope to escape if you are a government 
 official and any tendency to fraud lurks 
 within you. He is peculiarly witty withal 
 when the mood is on him. He is the 
 journalist who looks at you so seriously 
 and writes about you so facetiously. Meet- 
 ing him one day as he came out of 
 Welcker's, I took him up to Wormley's, 
 and while we were gorging ourselves, I 
 filled his ears with the narration of my stu-
 
 MR. QHIM'S DREAM. 55 
 
 pendous plan, repeating the dose at inter- 
 tervals subsequently, until Donn Piatt was 
 convinced. He threw the whole force of 
 his " gigantic intellect," as he jestingly calls 
 it (speaking a true word in jest), into 
 a leading editorial in his paper, committing 
 The Capital in favor of my magnificent 
 and undeniably useful project. 
 
 But on this day the powerful gladiator 
 from the Empire State was my prey. The 
 doorkeeper took in my card, and Senator 
 Conkling did me the honor to appear. 
 We stepped into the Vice-President's pala- 
 tial room, and I assured the Senator that 
 my business was of such transcendent im- 
 portance I must crave a couple of hours 
 of his leisure when at home ; and I asked 
 him to appoint the time. 
 
 " But what a big man you are !" was 
 my first exclamation. " I had no idea 
 you were so big !"
 
 56 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 " Yes, I have been called great," he quietly . 
 remarked. 
 
 " You don't look half so tall and broad- 
 shouldered in the Senate as you do out 
 here." 
 
 " I am among great men in there," he 
 explained. 
 
 " That's the reason," said I. " Out among 
 common-sized men a Senator's magnitude 
 shows itself. And now I see why you are 
 so often called a dandy. Fine clothes and 
 a blue necktie don't look well on a large 
 man. Only on dapper little men. In the 
 Senate Chamber, among so many large 
 men, you don't look large, and you don't 
 appear foppish. But outside " 
 
 " Yes," interrupted the Senator, in his 
 pleasant, yet firm, strong way, " I have 
 been called out at sundry times by original 
 geniuses, but you are the first to draw 
 me from senatorial duties to inform me
 
 MR. GHIWS DREAM. 57 
 
 how my personal appearance strikes you. I 
 conjecture you have been reading a ladies' 
 magazine, or wasting valuable time with a 
 dilettante, or gossiping with a man-milliner. 
 If your business with me is now concluded, 
 our interview ends." 
 
 " I want two hours," said I. " I have a 
 colossal plan to unfold to you, in which 
 your great city of New York is specially 
 concerned." 
 
 After some further conversation, I secured 
 the appointment I desired, met him at his 
 house at the hour designated, held various sub- 
 sequent interviews, and was finally successful 
 in polarizing all the atoms of that entire 
 mighty globe of cerebral substance in the 
 right direction regarding my scheme. 
 
 In a similar way, and with similar results, 
 I attacked a number of the leaders of 
 thought at the capital. 
 
 The broad, judicial mind of Chief Jus- 
 
 3
 
 58 MR. GfflM'S DREAM. 
 
 tice Waite became deeply enamored of the 
 project. 
 
 Even the serene and lofty complacency 
 of the venerable Fernando Wood bent to 
 consider my sweeping measure of progress; 
 and, waving its hoary conservatism away 
 behind it, entered with dignified enthusiasm 
 into the rising effort of human nature to 
 advance. 
 
 But I must admit that not every mem- 
 ber of Congress was or ever could be con- 
 vinced of the usefulness of this or any 
 other progressive step. There are men 
 who have no conception of progress; and to 
 talk with such men upon new and great 
 themes would be a waste of time. They 
 are constitutionally predisposed to favor in- 
 activity rather than progress, to frown upon 
 forward movements" and let stagnation ruin 
 a people. Such men I did not attempt 
 to convince. I did not seek an interview
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 59 
 
 with Randall in the House, or Bayard in 
 the Senate, though the former comes from 
 the great State which furnished a stentorian 
 advocate of my enterprise in the person of 
 the famous Pig Iron Kelley, and the other 
 represents a little State which produced 
 that incomparable letter-writer, George Alfred 
 Townsend. The latter became a solid 
 supporter of my forthcoming measure, and 
 eloquently rounded many a pithy period con- 
 cerning it over the signature of " Gath." 
 It was not so difficult to convince him at 
 last as to catch him at first. He was in 
 New York one day, New Orleans the next, 
 Saratoga the next, St. Louis the next, Wash- 
 ington the next, and had an engagement to 
 be in San Francisco the next. I caught 
 . him in the only place where he was ever 
 quiet on an express train. For subsequent 
 interviews, I had no difficulty in finding 
 him on an express train. This soul-stirring
 
 60 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 journalist committed himself thoroughly and 
 strongly in favor of the gigantic plan I 
 had marked out. Journalists all favored 
 it. At first, of course, they all ridiculed it ; 
 but after due consideration they all edged 
 around to the sensible side. Newspaper 
 correspondents harped upon it, and shortly 
 the idea was broadcast. 
 
 Perley considered its influence upon the 
 Republican party. 
 
 Jay Charlton dived into its technique. 
 
 Poiein wrote up its profitableness as a 
 speculation. 
 
 Redfield was sure it would not break 
 
 the solid South. 
 
 \ 
 Boynton prophesied what its effect would 
 
 be, from the Gulf to Alaska. 
 
 Eugene Lawrence was disappointed at not . 
 finding anything dangerously Ultramontane 
 in the scheme. 
 
 Every one treated it in his own special,
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 61 
 
 characteristic way, and thus it was analyzed 
 completely and advertised thoroughly. 
 
 Before narrating further how my great 
 project fared, I will in one long chapter 
 describe what the enterprise was, and how 
 I came to think of it
 
 62 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WAS born upon the sea. The 
 billows were very angry at the time. 
 They dashed against the vessel, and 
 they made such a terrible ado about it how 
 could I ever forget it? 
 
 My father was a sea captain, and he always 
 kept his little family with him. He and my 
 mother were one. One cannot well be in 
 two places at the same time. They steered 
 together in their course through married life, 
 keeping clear of its breakers, and holding to 
 the same latitude and longitude so closely 
 that the smallest angry wave could not roll 
 between them. And so it happened that I, 
 their only child, was born upon the ocean.
 
 MR. GlflM'S DREAM. 63 
 
 I was rocked in a crystal cradle one 
 hundred feet wide and forty feet deep. It 
 has rocked many persons into their long 
 sleep. 
 
 My infancy and youth were mainly spent 
 upon the restless waves. 
 
 When I dive down deep into memory, 
 and bring up to the light a few of the old- 
 est impressions I have stowed away there, to 
 look them over and feel them again I find 
 myself standing on a wooden thing which 
 goes by the name of a ship; but the "good 
 ship," as they call it, is in a woful plight, and 
 all the matters around are horribly mixed ; 
 nothing I can see or feel has any stability: 
 there is no settled bottom or top to any- 
 thing; whatever is up one minute is down 
 the next ; the ship is a mere wooden play- 
 thing for some monster, and all the frag- 
 ments of the vast sea around it are swinging 
 hither or surging thither, rushing on with
 
 64 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 resistless force. The howling winds and the 
 roaring waters combine to render the situ- 
 ation awful! I lose my hold of the door, 
 and go sliding around on the slippery deck, 
 coasting from point to point, until I clutch 
 something; and even then I see no place 
 of safety in the entire universe, for nothing 
 will keep still! I look up, and there I see 
 a tremendous bank of water approaching, 
 coming on so steadily, so firmly, so mightily, 
 that I expect when it gets here it will over- 
 whelm little me and all hereabouts. I can 
 feel the ship going down, down, and I can 
 see that gigantic ridge of water coming on, 
 on, until its foot reaches the vessel, giving 
 it such a kick that it tips the little wooden 
 thing half over and sends it up, up, up, 
 as though we were going up into Heaven 
 this very minute! Away up on the top 
 of a ridge of water we are lifted, at the 
 mercy of a single wave, and as the pal-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 65 
 
 try wooden thing sways over the crest to 
 the other side we begin to go down again 
 into that awful chasm, for the water rolls 
 away from beneath and lets us down, 
 down, down, so low, so far, so long, that 
 it seems as though we were to keep on 
 going down forever; but another rover, like 
 the former, comes and gives the ship an- 
 other kick, which sends it part way over 
 and up again, up, up, up to that dizzy 
 height from which I look around in 
 all directions down on wrathy Neptune, 
 who is opening his mouth and roaring far 
 and wide. The air appears to be moving 
 in all possible directions, and moving 
 in all possible haste, but down from the 
 heavens upon a sudden comes a gust of 
 wind with greater velocity ; and as it sweeps 
 the cordage through and through, it splits 
 the maintop-gallant sail from yard to yard, 
 and carries away the main-royal entire, giv-
 
 66 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 ing it a blow that sets it flying high and 
 away. Furiously another squall comes on, 
 and every sail is put to the severest test 
 of its tension by a mad current of air which 
 reaves the vessel of everything willing to 
 go before it ! In half the twinkling of 
 an eye it snatches off the weakest remain- 
 ing sail, wrenches another from its clew- 
 lines, and smacks the gaily flying streamers 
 into shreds ! Gust after gust swoops from 
 the raging fluid above us, down *to the 
 raging fluid beneath us, creating havoc in 
 every yielding obstacle to its course, and 
 dashing upon the sea to expend its power 
 there in goading Neptune up into a whiter 
 heat of fury ! Every downward gust is a 
 reckless plunge of air which plows yet 
 deeper into the roughened surface of the 
 ocean, raising a billow to sweep away the 
 ruins created by its impetuous career among 
 the older waves, meeting the newer undula-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 67 
 
 tions, clashing sometimes into a heterogene- 
 ous mixture, all rolling away in confusion, 
 sometimes compounding into one deep and 
 mighty surge. Heavy-looking clouds are 
 now rumbling in the distance, and tumbling 
 along pell-mell in their ardor, firing up and 
 shooting each other through and through, 
 bellowing in tones which echo long and 
 loudly from the broad ocean beneath. 
 Squalls thicken and darken with the rain 
 which now comes pouring from the over- 
 hanging firmament of awful blackness upon 
 the underlying fundament of awful rough- 
 ness. Oh ! how it rains ! Yet the drench- 
 ing water from that source is welcome, for 
 it washes the deck of the drenching spray 
 that comes from the filthy swash of the 
 sea. But the wild activity of the wind is 
 ruinous. Fearful and only fearful is the 
 situation now, for peril and only peril is 
 felt Ah ! sad news ! " Man overboard !"
 
 68 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 is shouted from the bow. Instantly the 
 cry is taken up, hoarsely repeated over the 
 deck, and rung out at every point in the 
 rigging, from the flying-jib to the spanker- 
 boom. I see a man hurrying from the 
 quarter-deck with a rope, and bending over 
 the stern ; another goes to the larboard 
 bulwark, and one to the starboard ; while 
 others are hurrying down the ratlines to 
 man a boat. Every effort is made to re- 
 cover poor Jack. But the luckless fellow, 
 in losing his hold of the bowsprit, lost his 
 hold of the entire globe, slipped away from 
 earth into unknown regions, and will never 
 close his fingers upon a rope again, even a 
 vessel's shroud. And any one else on board 
 might pass off in a similar way. The good 
 ship itself might go to destruction with us 
 all. This is a shaky place for a man to try 
 to live. After much groaning of the discon- 
 tented thing called a ship, the violence of
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 69 
 
 the storm abates, and the wooden article on 
 which we are enduring life goes on less 
 noisily and somewhat less disagreeably. The 
 fitfulness of the wind is gone, but the 
 water is never still, and therefore the ship 
 is never quiet. I see the mighty surges of 
 the ocean rolling toward me day after day, 
 and I feel them rocking me in my cradle 
 night after night, with the dreariest monot- 
 ony from week to week, until a vague vis- 
 ion or hope of something firm and solid in 
 the world, somewhere, grows into a splendid 
 reality, and looms up in the horizon to 
 meet the very yearnings of my instinct. 
 Land ! I land in Heaven ! It is a place 
 of such solidity and grandeur, affording 
 such new delight, I call it Heaven. There 
 are so many calm and lovely objects every- 
 where, land is a perfect Heaven to this 
 little four-year-old me. Hither and thither 
 in Heaven I rove as well as my sea-legs
 
 70 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 will allow. It is -a delightfully hard road 
 to travel. They call it a pavement ; I 
 call it the deck. I test the countless 
 articles around me ; I put my hands upon 
 them, and my finger-ends partake of the 
 satisfaction I feel to find that all these 
 queer things are real, substantial, tangible. 
 It is the veritable Heaven of my intense 
 longings, and I enjoy it as no one born 
 and brought up on the land of the earth 
 could. As I walk this deck I am so 
 pleased I laugh at every step. It is such 
 a queer deck to my unaccustomed feet I 
 hardly know how to tread. I expect it 
 to come up, but it fails me ; I look for it 
 to go down, but it is I who go down. I 
 jump up and try it again until I feel 
 squeamish ; then I swing my hips and 
 surge along till I am all right again. Every 
 scene is delightful from its novelty. But 
 the strange quiet investing all is amazing.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 71 
 
 The elements here are numberless, and yet 
 how little clashing. There is now and then 
 a jar, a slight rumbling, a curious trembling, 
 an earthquake they call it ; but that is 
 soon over, and all is quiet and peaceful as 
 before. The people living here, however, 
 seem agitated when they are taken and 
 shaken by the main beneath them ; but 
 what would be their feeling if this deck 
 on which they walk were always rearing 
 or plunging, and their houses always ca- 
 reening ? How would they like to live 
 where the foundation of one's abiding-place 
 is nothing but water, into whose fatal depths 
 an unseen rock at any time might sink 
 their house and all its contents? I won- 
 der that people here do not enjoy their 
 homes without exception, for it seems to me 
 they have nothing to make them unhappy. 
 I hear a multitude of different sounds which 
 I cannot recognize, and I listen eagerly to
 
 72 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 them all ; yet persons who have always 
 dwelt here say they hear nothing; and then 
 they say, " Yes, we hear plenty of noise." 
 To me it is a continual mixture of pleasing 
 sounds, albeit a queer species of quiet some- 
 how pervades everything here. It is not 
 silence, but quiet, a strange immovableness 
 of things. I do not find a hammock 
 swinging anywhere, and the bunks are the 
 flattest things a young sailor ever saw. I 
 become acquainted with youngsters of my 
 age, and they all ask me why I waddle 
 instead of walking as they do. I don't 
 know. But I think a while, and I tell them 
 that if they come on to my deck perhaps 
 they will waddle. I see some pretty little 
 boys wearing one-legged pants, and I don't 
 know what to make of them. I think they 
 are angels, but I am told they are girls. We 
 never had any on board our ship. I see 
 some bigger and more robustious angels,
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 73 
 
 too. My father says they remind him of 
 my dead mother. And I see some scrawny 
 angels, but I can't help liking them. I 
 am so happy I like everything I see or 
 hear here. Oh, these people who live on 
 land are blest ! blest ! or would be if they did 
 but know it, if they would only think so. 
 After a while my father and I, with some 
 other folks, go out of this hard, solid place, 
 where the ground and the houses stand so 
 still, and where so many people are bustling 
 about and making all sorts of music we go 
 from here way out upon a broader deck, 
 where there is not a man to be seen for 
 many a cable's length. Out here the deck 
 is painted green, and it feels inexpressibly 
 soft and nice. What a calm prevails! There 
 is no music here. It is solid quiet. I 
 never knew there could be such silence. 
 It is absolutely serene. Oh, this is a queer 
 place, but it is perfectly delightful. Half a
 
 74 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 knot to windward I see some big people 
 with horns. Those men are so large 
 they have four legs to stand on, and carry 
 an extra leg hung behind. They are the 
 funniest persons I ever saw aboard anything. 
 Some of them are kissing the soft green 
 deck ! What queer folks live out here, as 
 well as back there. I saw some men there 
 like these, only with big long ears, and 
 other men called them donkeys. We pass 
 on, and by and by we reach a cool and 
 lovely spot wHere the green deck changes 
 to brown, and a lot of masts have been 
 built into it. I am told we are in a forest. 
 What an odd set of masts ! All full of 
 such yards and cross-trees! And the poles 
 jut up so close to each other, everything 
 above is a tangle. They are all yard-arm 
 and yard-arm ! Bless my eyes if I can 
 make out a single shroud to them all ! 
 No sails, no halliards, no clew-lines nor
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 75 
 
 garnets, no shrouds nor ratlines, no stays, 
 no braces, no rigging of any kind, what 
 do they want of all those curious yards, 
 every one of which is jogged up and twisted 
 and gone askew to nothing ? Ha ! ha ! 
 what land-lubber stuck all those masts into 
 the deck, and forgot to put in even one 
 jib ? This is a wonderful world. Now I 
 hear some music. Up there where the top- 
 gallant shrouds ought to be, and away up 
 on that royal mast, I see gulls have boarded 
 us. My weather eye is out for them, and I 
 can see the stormy petrels and sea-gulls 
 alight. But Mother Carey's chickens here 
 are curious things. And I never saw such 
 infant sea-gulls before, nor so many sorts 
 and colors as well as sizes. Nor did I ever 
 hear them express their thoughts so deli- 
 cately. Oh, they are sweet, perfectly sweet, 
 and I am charmed to death almost. What 
 a remarkable kind of a place this is ! We
 
 76 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 climb over a gunwale, but there is no danger 
 of falling into the briny. On we walk until 
 we come to a cabin, as they call it, though 
 we have no such cabin on our ship. While 
 my folks are stopping here I go out of the 
 cubin on to the deck again. Looking far 
 away, I box the compass. Then I climb 
 over a stone bulwark into what they call a 
 road, though a ship's yawl would get aground 
 in such shallow roads as they have here. I 
 sit down in the sand until I begin to feel 
 dizzy ; then I sway myself up and swing 
 along on my pins, tramping to windward, 
 then to leeward, and boxing the compass 
 again while I take a turn around. I dive 
 into this land-lubber's cabin once more, 
 and, finding my folks not ready yet to go, 
 it occurs to me that I will ride on the 
 hurricane deck a while. I hoist myself up 
 a stairway, then up a ladder, but the hur- 
 ricane deck is all tipped to larboard, and
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 77 
 
 hangs there ; it is too steep to stand on ; 
 I should slide into the lee-scuppers unless 
 I belayed myself to that red, square 
 smoke-pipe; so I climb back and fumble 
 around in the galley. Soon I am about 
 to go down into the hold, when the old 
 salts here tell me it is so dark down 
 there I couldn't see my hand a rod be- 
 fore me ; so I only fathom it with a 
 stone tied to a string, until I hollo at 
 the strange sight of two green eyes down 
 there in the dark looking up at me aw- 
 fully. Out on deck I go again, and pick- 
 ing out the smallest mast hereaway, I shin 
 up to the main-yard, but there I get stuck 
 and have to be lifted out yelling. I am 
 hurt, but I soon get over that, and I am 
 so satisfied I laugh in perfect glee at the 
 host of new and mysterious things I see 
 around me everywhere. Day after day I 
 enjoy sights, sights, sights, delights, delights,
 
 78 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 delights! I want to live here always, but in 
 a few days my father says that old Neptune 
 is loudly calling for us, and we must go. 
 So I take a dismal leave of this, my beauti- 
 ful Heaven, with its myriad contents, never 
 to see them, perhaps, any more. Oh ! it is 
 hard, hard to part with all the lovely beings 
 here, knowing that they remain to enjoy 
 their varied lives amid these entrancing 
 scenes, while I must go upon the ocean's 
 drear waste, and see no land again for a long, 
 long time. To leave the endless variety of 
 music here, and endure the monotonous roar 
 of the sea alone, is a misery ; but there is no 
 help for it, so I sadly bestir myself for our 
 departure. With tears in my eyes I kiss all 
 the little angels I can find, and I throw one 
 big, wholesale kiss to the delicate little petrels 
 and every other sweet creature that dwells in 
 this paradise bidding them all come and see 
 me if they can, early and often, in my home
 
 MR. GfflM'S DREAM. 79 
 
 upon the sea. Away we sail, and this little 
 four-year-old fellow grows homesick, or land- 
 sick, or something, as well as seasick. A 
 furious gale comes and tosses us up and 
 around so carelessly that my little stomach 
 cannot endure it without issuing a protest 
 After the brief sojourn where it was so calm 
 and where I was so happy, treading a deck 
 that heaved so rarely, I must now become 
 accustomed to the motion of the seething sea 
 again. Oh ! I do not want this any more ! 
 I long for the solid Heaven I left behind me ! 
 But on we totter, the gale above us passes, 
 the raging fever of the ocean subsides, and 
 through the ordinary swell of the crestfallen 
 sea we cut our way, carrying every sheet in 
 the wind, all of us growing more contented 
 every day in the cheering sunlight's blaze. 
 We have a stock of harpoons on board. 
 Every man is enlisted for a warfare of two 
 years and twenty months against the whales,
 
 8o MR. GfflM'S DREAM. 
 
 and we are bound for that cold sea where 
 many of the oily giants swim. We occa- 
 sionally meet other ships. They are all 
 plunging along as we are, rolling and pitch- 
 ing. But we pass a huge dark object that 
 neither rolls nor pitches in the least. Waves 
 are breaking their heads upon it, yet the 
 grim pile stands unmoved. This little four- 
 year-old boy is interested to inquire why that 
 thing is not tossed about like other things 
 on the water, and I am told that it is a 
 rock. The answer does not satisfy me, for 
 it seems to me that if it is a rock it ought 
 to rock. Our vessel seems more of a real 
 "rock" to me, and that dark object is the 
 only staunch thing I have seen upon the 
 water. They tell me it does not float, while 
 the vessel does ; and they explain the differ- 
 ence, to my satisfaction ; but by and by we 
 pass another great object that is really float- 
 ing, yet neither rocking nor a rock ; a
 
 MR. GfflM'S DREAM. 81 
 
 massive thing, not dark and frowning, but 
 bright and glistening ; supported by the 
 water, though it is hard and solid all 
 through ; a vast object that is moving 
 steadily and grandly, heedless of the mightiest 
 waves, and able to carry a multitude of peo- 
 ple if they could get upon it. I am in- 
 formed it is an iceberg, and I inquire why 
 we do not travel upon an iceberg, or upon 
 something steady like that, instead of being 
 tossed about in such a frail thing as a ship. I 
 do not get a satisfactory answer to my queries. 
 They tell me that an iceberg melts and dis- 
 appears, but I tell them that wood does not 
 melt, and I want to know why we do not 
 have a ship or something of that size, or 
 of some sort of respectable size, so that the 
 strongest gales cannot imperil or disturb us. 
 The sailors all laugh. No question ever 
 seemed to them more idle. But no question 
 ever seemed to me more important. I persist
 
 82 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 in my inquiries till I sober them, when they 
 seriously answer that they are dumbfounded. 
 And well they might be. 
 
 The waves of the ocean were tremendous 
 when I first looked upon them. My little 
 eyes beheld them in all their real glory, 
 and I see them still the same. The cir- 
 cumstances were such that I felt the winds 
 and saw the waves just as they were, and not 
 as they might be imagined afar off. I was 
 too young to be intoxicated with glamour, 
 and to call the terrible waters sublime. I 
 could only view them in the light of their 
 own actual worth. No preconceived opinions 
 of mine were operating then to mould them 
 to an ideal. Romance was not there, to 
 brighten their fearful mien, to charm away 
 the reality. Precisely as the waves were, 
 they rolled before me ; and the impression 
 they fixed upon a new mind was true and 
 lasting.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 83 
 
 To one who was born and brought up on 
 the sea, there is a rich ludicrousness in the 
 ideas of those who were not (so far as their 
 ideas pertain to that subject the sea). 
 After settling upon land, nothing so amused 
 me as to hear the narrow ideas of people 
 in general upon so great a matter as the 
 ocean. I found the impression common 
 among them that a vessel four or five hun- 
 dred feet long is a huge thing ! Bless their 
 little hearts, it may seem great to them. It 
 is great when compared with smaller things, 
 but a mere trifle when compared with greater 
 things. Everything is judged by compari- 
 son. Quietly resting in still water at the 
 dock, with river steamboats around, and a 
 rowboat happening near, the ocean steamer 
 appears a vast object. Place it in a dry-dock, 
 and it seems larger still. But it is not in its 
 element. Replace it in its element, and view 
 it when that element in mid-ocean is surging
 
 84 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 around it fiercely, threatening its life the 
 comparison is there reversed ; the mightier 
 mass belittles the vessel to a mere nothing ; 
 it disappears altogether, and the drowning 
 wretches find it worse than nothing, for it 
 brought them to their destruction. In their 
 last moments they perceive that the ocean 
 steamer, four or five hundred feet long, is not 
 a very great thing after all ; that if it had 
 been four or five hundred feet shorter it 
 would have been quite as great in the end ; 
 that such a thing as that is not a fit article 
 with which to navigate a stormy sea ; that 
 they would not be in a more unnatural situ- 
 ation if that same vessel, with themselves on 
 board, were in one of the streets of New- 
 York Canal street, for instance endeavoring 
 to sail on the dampness which settles there 
 when the sweet springtime comes. 
 
 It is easy to see how the erroneous im- 
 pression originated, that a vessel four or five
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 85 
 
 hundred feet long is a massive object Almost 
 every one obtains the first impression of an 
 ocean steamer by seeing it lying quietly at 
 the dock, or moving steadily through the still 
 waters of a harbor, where the contrast with 
 boats or with ripples can only serve to mag- 
 nify the ocean steamer in appearance the 
 ocean itself being so far in the background 
 as to be on the other side of the picture, 
 out of sight. With most persons, the first 
 impression of an ocean steamer has nothing 
 of the ocean about it, and is consequently a 
 false impression. And first impressions are 
 not eradicated easily. If every one caught 
 the first sight of an ocean steamer while it 
 was performing its function, laboring to sur- 
 vive a terrific storm at sea, we should all 
 regard an ocean steamer as no very great 
 affair on the ocean. 
 
 In consequence of the ideas of people who 
 emanate from the land, pursuing their ludi-
 
 86 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 crous little methods in regard to the ocean, 
 the briny deep is salting them down at a 
 fearful rate. If it were not horrible, it would 
 be laughable, to see intelligent people con- 
 tinue a system of navigation by which thou- 
 sands of the most highly organized beings 
 upon earth perish every year unnecessarily. 
 
 The champion grave-digger of the world 
 is Neptune. If you wish to be buried 
 nicely, speedily, thoroughly, cheaply, yet fash- 
 ionably, go to him. He is an undertaker as 
 well as a grave-digger, and will take your 
 whole case into his own hands. It will be 
 attended to at once, though he has a great 
 deal to do. He is always busy somewhere. 
 His business is overwhelming. And no one 
 could carry on that business better. He has 
 been extensively patronized by all classes, 
 taking the highest to the lowest. He will 
 bury you more than six feet deep if you 
 wish ; he will put you as low as you please.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 87 
 
 You have but to let him reach and take 
 you, when he will gently lay you in a grave 
 so deep that no body-snatcher on earth will 
 ever get a rope around your neck for an 
 enterprising doctor to plunge his knife into 
 your still mysterious spleen. 
 
 Although Neptune is very strong, he has 
 one weak point : he lacks intelligence. He 
 pervades eveiy drop of every ocean with his 
 might, yet the whole is merely blind force 
 The enlightened force of intelligence in all 
 men combined, however, does not successfully 
 cope with that blind force ; there is not a 
 safe conveyance on the ocean ! 
 
 If " knowledge is power," Neptune's power 
 over man has been very great for one pos- 
 sessing Neptune's amount of knowledge. 
 
 Neptune has no more knowledge of what 
 he is doing than if he were a crazy man 
 or an angry woman, or a mad dog, or a red- 
 hot stove. And has Neptune's powerful en-
 
 88 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 emy, Man, been more thoughtful ? Failing 
 to provide against the simple combination 
 of weak drops of water in motion, thousands 
 of souls every year are completely washed 
 out of the bodies that were made especially 
 for them. 
 
 Human beings rush upon the sea, there 
 to be lightly tossed off into ready-made 
 graves which rise to fold them in. 
 
 Whole shiploads of people from time to 
 time have disappeared. Four of the best 
 steamships, the President, the Pacific, the 
 City of Glasgow, and the City of Boston, 
 were never heard from after leaving port for 
 the last time. Hundreds of persons upon 
 each of those vessels were forever missing. 
 
 Another steamer Pacific has been lost, and 
 more than 100 persons have gone down with 
 it. 
 
 The great ocean disasters of recent years 
 are vividly remembered: the steamer Ville
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. . 89 
 
 du Havre carried down to death 226 per- 
 sons, the Schiller 311, the Atlantic nearly 
 500, the Cospatrick nearly 500. 
 
 Among the legion of shipwrecks I will 
 enumerate a few others, in alphabetical order, 
 
 without including in the list a single case 
 
 where less than a hundred persons per- 
 ished : 
 
 The Amazon, .... Jan. 4, 1852, ; lives lost, 102 
 
 " Anna Jane, . . . Sept. 29, 1853 ; " " 393 
 
 " Arctic, Sept. 27, 1854; 323 
 
 " Austria, Sept. 13, 1858 \ " " 461 
 
 " Birkenhead, . . . Feb. 26, 1852; " " 438 
 
 " Cambria, .... Oct. 19, 1870; " " 170 
 
 " Captain, Sept. 7, 1870; " " 500 
 
 " Central America, . 1857; " " 417 
 
 " Charles Bartlett, . . July, 1849 ; " " 132 
 
 " Earl of Abergavenny, Feb. 5, 1805 ; " " 247 
 
 " Exmouth, . . . . April 28, 1847; " " 2 5 Z 
 
 " Favorite, ..... April 28, 1854 ; " " 201 
 
 " Floridian, .... Feb. 28, 1849 ; " 174 
 
 " Golden Gate, . . . July 27, 1862 ; " " 204 
 
 " Halsewell, . . . . Jan. 6, 1786; " " 166 
 
 " John, May 3, 1855; " " 190 
 
 " Lady Nugent, . . . May, 1854; " " 400
 
 9 o ^ MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 The London, Jan. n, 1866; lives lost, 230 
 
 " Northfleet, .... Jan. 22, 1873 J " " 2 93 
 
 " Ocean Monarch, . . Aug. 24, 1848 ; " " 178 
 
 " Pomona, April 28, 1859 ; " " 386 
 
 " Powhattan, .... April 15, 1854; " " 250 
 
 " Queen Charlotte, . . Sept. 19,1854; " " 117 
 
 " Queen Charlotte, . . March 17, 1800; " " 700 
 
 " Rothsay Castle, . . Aug. 17, 1831 ; " " 130 
 
 " Royal Adelaide, . t . April 30, 1850; " " 206 
 
 " .Royal Charter, . .0^.26,1859; " 459 
 
 " Royal George,. . . Aug. 29, 1782; " " 800 
 
 " San Francisco, . . . Dec. 24, 1853; " " 300 
 
 " Staffordshire, . . . Dec. 29, 1853 ; " " 175 
 
 " Tayleur, Jan. 21, 1854; " " 290 
 
 These were among the so-called large 
 vessels. Reckoning the vast number of 
 lives lost by the destruction of smaller ves- 
 sels, the total for any one year is several 
 thousand persons. 
 
 From the little port of Gloucester, Mass., 
 over 300 vessels have gone to wreck within 
 one generation. 
 
 During six tempestuous weeks beginning 
 in December, 1839, 1 9 2 vessels were driven
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 91 
 
 upon the shore of New England ; 192 com- 
 plete wrecks; 89 of them on one day, Dec. 
 15. 1839. 
 
 The loss of vessels from all the ports of 
 the world together is enormous every year. 
 
 For instance, during only one month (May, 
 1873) 1 6 of the vessels bound to or from 
 American ports alone were lost. 
 
 In the previous summer, 41 vessels en- 
 gaged in the seal fishery were wrecked on 
 the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland. 
 Those 41 vessels contained 4,000 persons, of 
 whom only 175 were saved. Thus, in one 
 year 3,825 persons 'were drowned in one 
 small portion of one of the oceans. Though 
 such fatality at sea is not the rule, the 
 average is great, and the aggregate is im- 
 mense. 
 
 Yet the same old system continues." Little 
 things called ships are built, in great num- 
 bers, and sent out to destruction.
 
 92 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 In 1873 the number of vessels built in 
 America was 1,700. 
 
 In the five years ending with 1872, the 
 number of vessels built in America was 
 5,387, and the number of American vessels 
 lost during those five years was 2,117, nearly 
 half as many as were built. 
 
 There are now more than 20,000 vessels 
 in ocean waters, yet not a one is A i. 
 
 Now let us turn from the unprofitable 
 past to the glorious future. 
 
 There is one perfectly safe and sure way 
 to cross the ocean. And only one. Have 
 patience, and we will come to it and give it 
 a thorough examination together. When 
 upon the sea, the amount of one's patience 
 and long-suffering is greater than it should be. 
 
 The ships we embark in go to pieces, and 
 the difficulty is supposed to be without 
 remedy. If our dwelling-houses were as fre- 
 quently to break in pieces and scatter us
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 93 
 
 out, or if they were in the habit of surging 
 around and shaking us up without spilling 
 us out, something would be done ! In this 
 part of the world something on a large 
 scale would be very soon begun, in the en- 
 deavor to reform the matter. Houses would 
 be built which could not so readily wabble. 
 Vessels can be built which will not disport 
 themselves in a risky and ludicrous style. 
 There is a way to build a ship that cannot 
 sink or go to pieces, cannot pitch or roll. 
 
 And the same method will avert seasick- 
 ness, that broad, deep, long, high, insurmount- 
 able misery, that wretchedness, beginning with 
 the grim shadow of dreaded seasickness, and 
 merging into the agony of terribly real 
 seasickness ! It is time for a demurrer to 
 the action. Year after year, century after 
 century, man has travelled the ocean ; and 
 what has been done to alleviate, or even 
 mitigate, the sufferings of the journey, the
 
 94 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 pangs from that abominable disorder, that 
 old complaint, that worthless relic of an age 
 weak with ignorance, that shameful barbarism 
 of deportment at sea called seasickness ? 
 
 The most widespread epidemic that ever 
 travelled the world was seasickness. And 
 what is its present condition ? The malady 
 still prevails. It covers the ocean, for even 
 the great portion of the nineteenth century 
 gone has failed to combine the simple ele- 
 ments of a compound which is to quell the 
 epidemic. Smaller ills are met, each with its 
 antidote; the more occult the nature of an 
 ill, the more its counteracting agent is sought 
 while plainer difficulties are overlooked. The 
 evil of too great power has one plain anti- 
 dote : equal power. Let the force of the 
 ocean be what it may at any one point, man 
 can bring a greater force of resistance at 
 that point if he will. And he certainly will ! 
 Then may the ship say unto the ocean, as
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 95 
 
 Emilia so quaintly said to Othello, "Thou 
 hast not half the power to do me harm 
 that I have to be hurt!" 
 
 Building a vessel that can be easily over- 
 come and sunk by the force of a soulless 
 body is absurd ! Tossing upon the water 
 when we do not like the motion is ridic- 
 ulous ! Tossing out victuals is ludicrous ! 
 The coming man will do no such thing on 
 the coming ship, for the coming ship will 
 be adapted to the man aboard. He will 
 not walk in a zigzag line on a ship that 
 bobs along in a zigzag course. He will 
 not appear highly intoxicated in the calm 
 endeavor to tread an inclined plane which 
 is shifting every moment He will not 
 yearn for the end of his journey. Nor 
 will he be forced to bring his journey to a 
 sudden end among the purple mullets. 
 
 No! If man's ingenuity cannot contrive 
 a method of going safely and smoothly over
 
 96 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 a mere inanimate substance no harder than 
 the soft and fluent matter called water then 
 the age of improvements has ended! 
 
 Many thousand persons are rocking upon 
 the ocean at all times. Rocking and reeling 
 and tottering over the sea oh, it is ridicu- 
 lous ! Every hour, every minute, several thou- 
 sand persons are deep in the agony of 
 seasickness. Their feelings can never be 
 known by those who are only slightly af- 
 fected. Seasickness as experienced by some 
 is merely nausea for a day or two. Let them 
 not sneer at the malady in others, who pass 
 through the most excruciating series of tor- 
 ments that human nature can bear. Words 
 cannot be found strong enough to describe 
 it. However sensational it seems, it is all 
 true seasickness is. There is no romance 
 about it. Yet it is stirringly sensational. In 
 its hardest, strongest, fiercest form, it runs 
 into ship-fever, and is fatal.
 
 MR. GffSM'S DREAM. 97 
 
 There are pleasant ways in which to regard 
 seasickness. One is to consider it an auc- 
 tion, whereby we are clearing out a stock of 
 damaged goods, and they are going cheap. 
 Everything must be disposed of. Here is a 
 pie, an elegant pie, just now taken in; how 
 much is it worth? You can't buy these 
 goods new for less than ten or fifteen cents. 
 To be sure, this is second-hand; but how 
 much is it worth? One scent. Only one 
 scent. Going, going, gone to Mr. Neptune 
 there, for only one scent. Now, here is a 
 piece of tripe we laid in earlier ; some onions 
 and cheese and many other things along with 
 it ; how much for the lot ? The onions alone 
 would be sure to bring a scent. But they 
 must all go together. What is the lot worth ? 
 Start them at anything you like ; they will 
 be sure to go. How much for the lot ? The 
 tripe may be a little the worse for wear, but 
 it can't be much worse. One scent will start
 
 98 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 them. There they go, to Mr. Neptune, for one 
 scent. Next is a good, solid, rich, yellow, 
 saleratus biscuit, every chink full of powerful 
 soda. It will certainly bring a dolor. A 
 dolor to start it. A dolor. Going only a 
 dolor going, going, gone to Mr. Neptune 
 again, and for only one dolor. Cheap enough 
 for that. Here is a little soup left ; we had 
 more, but we couldn't get along at all with- 
 out using some of it, and this is what is 
 left of the quickly nourishing soup. Excel- 
 lent soup once. Take it now for what it's 
 worth. Nothing to start it. Who bids more ? 
 Nothing, nothing, nothing. Gone to Mr. 
 Neptune for nothing. 
 
 There are unpleasant ways, also, in which 
 to regard seasickness. When seasick, all is 
 horribleness ! There is no way to rest ! The 
 world has broken loose ! We are maddening ! 
 We look in every direction, but there is 
 nothing to depend upon; not an atom is
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 99 
 
 quiet; everything we see and feel is in terri- 
 ble motion ! The air is rushing, the ocean is 
 boiling, the billows are foaming, the water 
 is dashing, the waves are leaping, the spray 
 is drenching, the surges are thundering, the 
 ship is rolling and pitching, its prow is div- 
 ing, its masts are bending, its joints are 
 creaking, its timbers are groaning, upon its 
 heaving deck we are roaming it is a world 
 of solids and fluids in a fever of action ! Yet 
 the world around us seems calm compared 
 to the chaos of gyrating solids and fluids 
 within us! 
 
 Let us consider the pleasures to be derived 
 in travelling upon a first-class steamship. Here 
 we roll in the luxury of stately staterooms. 
 Delectable ! This is princely suffering ! We 
 surge out and roll more heavily. It is the 
 very poetry of motion in blank verse ! En- 
 tering a series of elegant saloons, and noting 
 the superb misery to be had in the first-
 
 ioo MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 cabin are we pained ? Let us not be squeam- 
 ish about it ; the pain we feel is the very ex- 
 cess of delight! We are simply infatuated 
 with vexation. What fine carving ! What 
 exquisite torment ! What rich upholstering ! 
 What interesting spasms ! What lovely tints ! 
 What grand convulsions ! What supernal 
 chandeliers ! What gay fits ! What charm- 
 ing gilt! What sublime explosions! What 
 beautiful wainscotings ! What extreme feel- 
 ings! What downy seats! What sumptuous 
 wretchedness ! The doors extend to us bright 
 silver hands ; the richly painted walls bloom 
 with golden touches ; the glassy varnish re- 
 flects our happiness all, all, and adds so 
 much to our joy ! We are swayed from de- 
 light to delight What handsome doorways ! 
 What showy stairways ! How pretty all 
 ways ! A fickle ship in display ! She is 
 richly attired for a dance, and is she not 
 gaily rushing through a lively season! We
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 101 
 
 think of her gilded trappings, and how they 
 soothe our troubled feelings. Oh, we are en- 
 during splendid misery! Let the ocean roar; 
 no matter what is without when all this is 
 within ! Sublimity everywhere ! The ship 
 has a npble prow! Don't we enjoy it! We 
 are compelled to stagger among mahogany. 
 If it were oak, perhaps we should be un- 
 happy. If pine, we might be miserable. We 
 are pitched by fate to unexpected pleasures* 
 A sick stranger is flung to us for a desperate 
 embrace. Another lurch, and away we go, 
 sadly parting. Life is dreadfully enchanting 
 here. We are frantic in admiration of the 
 ocean, yet we have only seen the surface; 
 we shall be lost in speechless pleasures if we 
 go down. While the ship floats we appreci- 
 ate every trifle of happiness vouchsafed to 
 us. Ever surrounded by jauntily moving or- 
 naments, we thread our devious way among 
 these pretty things, feeling ineffable feelings,
 
 102 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 looking at every portion of the ship in turn, 
 utterly satisfied with it all. Existence here 
 has a charm of its own. It is sweet trouble! 
 It is imperial agony ! It is a blissful fore- 
 taste of eternal punishment ! But we need 
 not feel any anxiety; everything here is first- 
 class; we may feel perfect security; we could 
 not ourselves more safely decorate the cabin, 
 nor more securely deck the deck. Depend 
 upon it, the whole vessel is safely adorned. 
 The prow will never make a fatal plunge, 
 for if you could see the figure-head ! if you 
 could but look into the face of that divine 
 protecting genius ! We are free from danger 
 all around the hull is guarded from the 
 ocean by thick coats of paint. Moreover, 
 the outline is a graceful contour. Everything 
 has been done that could be done. Money 
 was lavished upon the engines down there, 
 to give the iron a rich lustre. Every bit of 
 the ship is sufficiently refined and polished.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 103 
 
 The vessel is perfect; not a crack could be 
 discovered. Passengers are all right, in any 
 event they occupy the finest part of the 
 ship. Could so ornate a vessel sink ? Is it 
 possible that such a beautiful feminine crea- 
 ture could dive all over into that dirty 
 water, and get drowned ? Well, if she did, 
 every glittering thing will cheer us with its 
 bright looks when the ship sinks. We will 
 feast our eyes upon the sparkling tips of 
 burnished brass. Drowning, we shall be happy 
 to know that " a thing of beauty is a joy 
 forever," and therefore such beautiful things 
 as these ocean steamers must go on delight- 
 ing other people thus forever. Posterity, we 
 congratulate you. An ocean steamer, inside 
 or outside, is a dreadfully charming place. 
 How delightful to heave with overwhelming 
 emotion amid such scenes ! How sweet to 
 visit the railing, and linger there ! These are 
 blissful throes of anguish ! Upon a first-class
 
 104 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 steamship nausea is simply divine ! After ex- 
 ploring the whole vessel a few hundred times^ 
 we meet objects that look a little familiar. 
 We recognize them, and sometimes we are 
 moved to embrace them. It seems as though 
 we had always lived here and sometimes as 
 though we should die here. It is a pictur- 
 esque locality for walking. With carefully 
 studied gait, we loiter along from saloon to sa- 
 loon. Ah ! these fleeting moments are linger- 
 ing hours of halcyon distress. When sated with 
 the glory of all the ship's saloons, we can 
 seek the hidden charm of freshness in that 
 retired nook, that pretty niche, that lovely 
 retreat the state-room. Entering that bower, 
 the pleasing memories awakened are inde- 
 scribable. When we leave this fragrant niche, 
 we trip around over the deck, and fantas- 
 tically toe the bulwark. There we obtain 
 immediate relief from too much of a good 
 thing. We leave the bulwark with a lighter
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 105 
 
 step, and plunge under cover, taking um- 
 brage at a sofa, beneath a proudly swaying 
 wall. Then something suddenly happens 
 again. " History repeats itself." Oh ! we are 
 having a grand time ! These are the stirring 
 moments that make our lives worth living! 
 How sweet the air! Nothing could ap- 
 proach the fragrance ! A ship's aroma there 
 is no other property like it ! We smell it, 
 we condemn it, we keep it, we hate it, we 
 breathe it, we loathe it, we avoid it, we catch 
 it, we shun it, we despise it, we chew it, we 
 cannot help it, we swallow it, we have it, 
 we drink it, we secure it, we dwell upon it, 
 we move in it, we fill our pockets with it, 
 and every stitch of clothing receives and 
 holds its share of it. Every charming nook 
 in the ship is redolent of it. We feel, with 
 Othello, " if it were now to die, 'twere now 
 to be most happy "though he said it soon 
 after getting married, and in troth we are in
 
 io6 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 a different plight. In many ways the vessel 
 enthralls us. The activity of perennial youth 
 pervades it. Exhilaration reigns. Look at 
 the lively hangings. The walls come and 
 go. The people move with alacrity. We 
 are thrown together frequently ; we often 
 meet unexpectedly ; this is a pleasure : this 
 is companionship ! Sometimes a number of 
 us get together in a knot in one corner; 
 without knowing why, we gather suddenly, 
 and hold a mysterious conclave; then we all 
 go to another corner; soon we go back 
 again, all together ; then we are all moved 
 to try that other corner again ; we go 
 through these proceedings several times ; 
 this is society ! Eating is one of the pleas- 
 ant horrors, too. Hesitation and celerity join 
 their forces above the board. When we take 
 dinner or supper, or break that sweet fast 
 in the morning, the table is well supplied 
 with the various kinds of motion. English
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 107 
 
 plates glide, and upon them our French rolls 
 roll. These China cups of China tea are 
 very fluent ; coffee is quite as rapid in its 
 delivery, getting the floor and holding it, 
 agitating the whole assembly. Butter spreads 
 itself likewise, and bread of course goes after 
 it. The meat is restless, and the cheese 
 more animated than usual. The ham en- 
 deavors to walk again. How the eggs are 
 rolling. The tongue is extremely active, 
 though it says nothing. Expectation is on 
 tiptoe, ready to rush out to the bulwark. 
 Hurry, hurry, is the rule. Kiss me quick 
 and go, my victuals. Quick returns and 
 small profits by eating. The various forces 
 of the edibles are correlated at last in the 
 stomach, and converted into one kind of 
 motion. Returning from the bulwark, ex- 
 amine the gilt-edged mirrors, and admire the 
 picture of happiness in each. Walk out on 
 deck again for more delights. You can take
 
 io8 MR. GHIJWS DREAM. 
 
 a bath for nothing in the lee-scuppers ; and 
 when you find you may slide down hill all 
 day without walking up, it is enough to 
 convert old age into youth or second child- 
 hood. At night, if you would study astron- 
 omy, every mast will bow to you, and point 
 out every star. 
 
 Seasickness is one of the greatest evils of 
 the world, and I am about to propose a plan, 
 involving a radical change in nautical affairs, 
 which will obviate the misery and peril of 
 sea voyages. 
 
 When this new system of navigation has 
 been adopted, we shall have no poets exas- 
 perating our minds with such an awful pre- 
 sentation of truth as the following : 
 
 " Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell ; 
 
 Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave; 
 Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell, 
 As eager to anticipate their grave." 
 
 Nor shall we continue to be pained by 
 such a dreadful ending as this:
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 109 
 
 " Till, all exhausted and bereft of strength, 
 O'erpowered they yield to cruel fate at length. 
 The burying waters close around their head 
 They sink ! forever numbered with the dead." 
 
 And, alas ! we shall not dwell with mourn- 
 ful pleasure on the sweet rhythm which tells 
 us thus the sad sequel of lives cut off in the 
 brightness of youth and strength and hope : 
 
 "Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave, 
 While the billow mournful rolls, 
 And the mermaid's song condoles, 
 Singing glory to the souls 
 Of the brave." 
 
 The following tribute, too, will be brought 
 to light as a curiosity in literature, a relic of 
 the age of shipwrecks: 
 
 " God rest the brave 
 Who 'neath the Atlantic wave 
 
 Have sunk to their last home ! 
 
 ****** 
 The tempest blast their parting knell, 
 The gurgling waters their farewell, 
 . Their winding sheet the cold dark wave, 
 Their gallant ship her liegemen's grave."
 
 no MR. GHfM'S DREAM. 
 
 And scarcely credible will seem the fact 
 that mankind ever sacrificed itself to the 
 ocean so freely as to inspire the beautiful la- 
 ment in the following sad apostrophe to Nep- 
 tune: 
 
 " To thee the love of woman hath gone down ; 
 
 Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, 
 O'er youth's bright locks and beauty's flowery crown. 
 
 Yet must thou hear a voice : ' Restore the dead ! 
 Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee ; 
 Restore the dead, thou sea !' " 
 
 Equally strange then will this more sub- 
 lime apostrophe to Neptune seem : 
 
 " Upon the watery plain 
 The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
 
 A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
 When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
 Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." 
 
 With stranger feelings still the future anti- 
 quarian will sound the following lines, and 
 marvel at the simple foolhardiness of these 
 times :
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. in 
 
 "Hark! Pity! Hark! 
 
 Now mounts, now totters on the tempest's wings, 
 Now grounds and shivers the replunging bark. 
 Cling to the shrouds ! In vain !" 
 
 But he will be utterly astounded on learn- 
 ing by his researches that people in this age 
 of abundant energy cared more for ostenta- 
 tious display than they did for their lives, 
 and travelled in ships that would burn. As 
 no pity is called for under such circumstances, 
 we cannot well blame the future antiquarian 
 if his sense of the ludicrous moves him to 
 hilarious laughter when he comes across such 
 piteous lines as these : 
 
 "Lo! o'er the waves a lurid light is cast; 
 
 Blood-red the ship pursues her burning way; 
 Devoured by fire, sore smitten by the blast, 
 Her doom is sealed ere dawns another day." 
 
 When he stops laughing at such incongru- 
 ity his comment will be : " Well, they were 
 simply foolish to navigate with such com bus-
 
 iia MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 tible little things. Yet they had thousands 
 and thousands of those before they had one 
 of the right kind. In 1877 tne 7 na cl over 
 twenty thousand sea-going vessels, and not 
 one of them worthy to be used for sea-going. 
 Not a person on earth until then had ever 
 put forth the idea of building a vessel of the 
 right size and shape. The people of that 
 period spent their abundance on mere show, 
 and idled away their time in writing poetical 
 wails over their griefs, instead of taking hold 
 and working practically to improve, to ad- 
 vance, to do away with their imperfect struc- 
 tures, to rise above their difficulties, to remove 
 the cause of their continually recurring ocean 
 catastrophes." 
 
 Pursuing his researches, he will ponder over 
 the ponderous strangeness of such extraordi- 
 nary doings as these : 
 
 " A thousand miles from land are we, 
 Tossing about on the roaring seal
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 113 
 
 From billow to bounding billow cast, 
 Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast !" 
 
 In his grim delight at the seeming novelty 
 of any human being being so ridiculously 
 circumstanced, and yet perceiving that it is 
 not a novelty, but a thing of the past, he 
 may exclaim : " There is nothing new under 
 the sun!" 
 
 But there is. And the change I am about 
 to propose in the method of navigating the 
 sea will develop an entirely new thing under 
 the sun. 
 
 Our water vehicles have been touched up 
 with a few changes now and then. How 
 steamers can be pushed forward with the 
 least amount of puffing and sweating has 
 been importantly discussed, and a great deal 
 of thought has been given to the angles and 
 curves. Ho ! let the angles and curves be 
 what they may, and the boilers large or 
 small, the ocean rolls around them all with
 
 ii4 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 a power so terrible that every ship is made 
 to squeak, and some of our greatest favorites 
 are lost. The ocean beats upon the shore 
 of every land, proudly exclaiming to Inven- 
 tion, " Thus far shalt thou come, but no 
 farther!" and inventors have stood awe- 
 stricken, regarding the great highway of 
 nations as one that must always be uncom- 
 fortable, and always dangerous to travel. 
 
 The great subject of ocean transit has 
 been darkly and narrowly viewed. We still 
 trust our giddy creations where they will sink 
 or swim, according to the weather; and we 
 trust ourselves upon them, expecting to 
 survive or perish, doubtful which. 
 
 Our greatest vehicles on land all move 
 with majesty and power; our greatest vehi- 
 cles on water are kicked about in a style 
 truly laughable. 
 
 The future will reflect and wonder at the 
 relative proportions of our land and water
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 115 
 
 structures, when the former are built to 
 quietly sleep and the latter must live in fury. 
 On land we have acres covered by one roof ; 
 blocks joined to blocks; a city, miles in ex- 
 tent, with conjoint houses, ubiquitous pave- 
 ment, with intersecting gas-pipes, sewers, and 
 water-pipes; forming one grand structure, 
 complete in itself, interdependent, a unity; 
 and yet, with all its greatness, to rest upon 
 the quiet earth. Such a thing is possible ; 
 it is achieved. A unity of much less dimen- 
 sions, only sufficient to traverse the ocean 
 securely, is certainly possible, and it will be 
 achieved. 
 
 Manifestly there is a need of something 
 better to take the place of the unreliable 
 thing called a ship. 
 
 Now let us see precisely what is required. 
 Safety, of course. Speed is but a secondary 
 consideration. Safety first. How shall we 
 secure safety ? By obtaining steadiness. We
 
 n6 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 may like swiftness, but we must have steadi- 
 ness. A ship that is steady is safe; a man 
 that is steady is safe. Many a ship is fast, 
 but not steady or safe; many a man is fast, 
 but not steady or safe. Vessels at the dock 
 are steady, but when they go to sea they 
 become intoxicated. Some men do when 
 they go away on a journey. A ship, so 
 quiet and well behaved where civilized people 
 dwell, is terribly unsteady when travelling 
 abroad. The reason is plain : ships have not 
 yet grown large enough to resist the power- 
 ful influences thrown around them. And 
 when ships develop to the right size they 
 will progress to the right form. It will 
 never make the passage of the Atlantic safe 
 and comfortable to augment the number of 
 its little floating palaces. They are swarming 
 out of the Clyde and the Delaware, but the 
 savage sea is ready for them ; their numbers 
 cannot avail ; the ocean has power to destroy
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 117 
 
 them all, one by one. Swell the number of 
 the uncanny things till every square mile of 
 ocean has its bobbing toy ! yet the very 
 finest will be kicked and cuffed around un- 
 feelingly, broken unmercifully, ruined utterly ! 
 
 The ocean is a broad-gauge route ! Broad- 
 gauge vehicles are required for such a strik- 
 ingly broad-gauge route. The route is tried 
 by a host of vehicles ; not one of them fits 
 the track. They are all of one sort by being 
 narrow-gauge ; and the narrow-gauge is clearly 
 inadequate. Centuries of experience unite 
 their long lists of ocean horrors to show 
 that a narrow-gauge vehicle is not adapted 
 to a broad-gauge route; yet a narrow-minded 
 policy continues trying hard to run narrow- 
 gauge vehicles comfortably on a broad-gauge 
 route. 
 
 The great ocean vehicle of the future will 
 not be called a ship. Vivid recollections of 
 seasickness will die with that word. The
 
 n8 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 distantly coming man will laugh upon ascer- 
 taining in musty books what ships were. 
 The vehicle made to carry him over the 
 stormy sea will less resemble a ship of the 
 present day than a whale resembles a min- 
 now. 
 
 Let us conceive the thing whereon the 
 future man will traverse every ocean. And, 
 for the convenience of a name, let us call 
 the mighty structure a TOTO. 
 
 Taking one long leap requiring hundreds 
 of years, we come down in New Jersey. 
 Thus reaching the center of New Jersey, we 
 proceed northeasterly, in the direction of 
 what was formerly Jersey City. Before we 
 arrive within a dozen miles we enter the 
 suburbs of a vast commercial city. We 
 find that Manhattan Island overflowed in 
 every direction long ago, and now New York
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 119 
 
 and New Jersey here are one. New York 
 City and all its populous neighborhood, in- 
 cluding a piece of the State of New Jersey 
 ceded to it, were united into one grand 
 municipality, in order that America might 
 wear the honor of having the largest city in 
 the world. And here it is : a city of stu- 
 pendous proportions, and rapidly growing ; 
 containing already tens of millions of deni- 
 zens ; the commercial emporium of a conti- 
 nent whereon dwell five hundred millions of 
 people. 
 
 New York City swung its arms around 
 New York Bay, and took it all into its 
 embrace. 
 
 Floating in the waters of this bay are 
 worthy bearers for the mighty commerce of 
 this port. From the Narrows around to the 
 Narrows again, the densely populated shore 
 is lined with structures that were built for 
 use, for safety and for comfort on the water.
 
 120 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Interspersed with river craft are those of quite 
 another form and size, and built as differently 
 from river craft as an ocean is differenj: from 
 a river. 
 
 Touching at intervals the shore around 
 the bay, and touching Manhattan Island at 
 various points, these sea-going and seaworthy 
 conveyances are receiving and discharging 
 mankind and merchandise. All these ocean 
 vehicles have to encounter the same bois- 
 terous Atlantic Ocean, and they are all of a 
 similar shape and size. They are just large 
 enough for safety where the elements are 
 fiercest. A greater magnitude than that is 
 not required, and who could now be satisfied 
 with anything less? 
 
 In the ignorance and weakness of the 
 world's youth, of course, mankind was forced 
 to endure hardships. But as the world gath- 
 ered strength it gathered the means of ob- 
 taining the comforts of life. And thus many
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 121 
 
 hardships were swept away by inventors. In 
 the latter part of the nineteenth century one 
 arose and inquired : Wherefore the necessity 
 of enduring the last and greatest of all hard- 
 ships when easy ships might be built to take 
 the place of the hard ships? 
 
 Mankind soon built an easy ship, and called 
 the easy ship a Toto. 
 
 We will go on board a Toto, and see what 
 it is. 
 
 In passing from the solid ground to the 
 Toto, we pass from a city on land to a neat 
 little city on water. The buildings are not 
 so high, and there are other differences to be 
 described. 
 
 We enter the floating little city by its cen- 
 tral thoroughfare, and walk straight on to the 
 other end. The distance is only 600 yards. 
 But in traversing these cross streets we are 
 particularly struck with the breadth of the 
 Toto, for it is half its length. Its horizontal
 
 129 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 boundary line is oval. The Toto is very 
 nearly level, and might be called a gigantic 
 raft. But a raft is a crude affair, and this is 
 not. Other considerations lead us to think 
 of the Toto as a great ferry-boat. It is a 
 ferry-boat worthy of its line ! How solid and 
 firm the structure beneath our feet ! Is there 
 anything here that would give way in a 
 storm? Are we shut up within the walls of 
 a paltry ship, "cabined, cribbed, confined," 
 breathing the foul air which forms the all- 
 pervading spirit of a tipsy vessel ? No ; we 
 walk these open streets as we would tread 
 Broadway. When we are out at sea we 
 shall get a smell of the ocean, sometimes 
 a sight, but not a taste! not a taste of the 
 filthy brine! 
 
 The Toto appears to the mind at first to 
 be of a prodigious length, but in reality the 
 most prodigious dimension of the Toto is 
 its width, and not its length. When vessels
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 123 
 
 400 or 500 feet long were built in great 
 numbers, it would have required only four 
 of those 500 feet vessels in one straight line 
 to exceed the length of the Toto. To fill 
 out the width, and cover an area of water 
 equal to that covered by the Toto, quite a 
 number more would have been required. But 
 there were plenty of them. The twenty thou- 
 sand vessels afloat in 1877, if massed into 
 groups of the size of a Toto, would have 
 shown the ability of mankind at that period 
 to have constructed, not merely one Toto, 
 but many Totos. 
 
 All great structures, the vast bridges, tow- 
 ering buildings, etc., do not seem so gigantic 
 when built as they do beforehand, when we 
 contemplate their proposed enormous dimen- 
 sions in figures. Everything outdoors appears 
 more tremendous when considered indoors 
 than it does when we go out and look upon 
 it. Outdoors we see it in its natural position,
 
 134 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 we get a correct idea of its real size ; that 
 is, its relative bigness. Comparing it with 
 its surroundings, no great bridge ever seems 
 too large ; we are beholding it in its ele- 
 ment. When we behold the Toto in its 
 element, far from land, and compare it with 
 its surroundings will it seem too large? 
 No, indeed ! 
 
 Cities upon land extend for miles in length 
 and miles in breadth, while this little city is 
 only 600 yards in length and 300 yards in 
 breadth, only one-eighteenth of a square 
 mile. 
 
 Let us go to the lower end of Manhattan 
 Island, the point of New York City which 
 used to be called the Battery, and go on 
 board the Toto there. Totos are mainly 
 alike, but that one is at a point of historic 
 interest. 
 
 We go. 
 
 Here we are, where Castle Garden used
 
 MR. GfffM'S DREAM. 125 
 
 to loom up, in the gloiy of its rotundity 
 looking far more formidable than the Battery 
 which crouched behind it. This is the place 
 where Jenny Lind sang, rendering Castle 
 Garden one of the scenes of story and song. 
 It became the very first objective point of 
 many travellers from foreign lands. The 
 Battery faded and brightened, and faded 
 again until it brightened up with a new 
 light when from this spot the first and only 
 original Toto took its new departure to 
 gladden the vision of the assembled millions 
 who saw it going and coming. America 
 saw it going, and England afterward saw it 
 coming. All England would rather have 
 walked to their Land's End than to have 
 missed that sublime spectacle. But the sight 
 is too common now to be remarkable. 
 What is a new city, in any land, after one has 
 seen a hundred ? What is a new city on the 
 water after one has seen a hundred? When
 
 126 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 this old land was new, however, when it was 
 Young America, the Toto was said to be a 
 " big thing." It was an elephant, some de- 
 clared. It was a whale, thought others. 
 But the elephant, when trained, was appre- 
 ciated. The whale was valuable, and not a 
 man was taken into that whale who did not 
 come out again in a few days, without even 
 having been sick in the stomach. 
 
 We find that very little iron is used in 
 the construction of the Toto. There is 
 some, but not a great deal. There is more 
 than would be sufficient to make one steel 
 pen, but not so much that any person would 
 ever think of saying that the Toto is built 
 of iron. The principal material is much 
 lighter, yet very tough and durable. It is a 
 substance which for a long time was manu- 
 factured only in sheets, forming an article 
 remarkably strong for its thickness, and called 
 paper. When its utility jumped from simple
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 127 
 
 paper to car-wheels, taking in small boats on 
 the way, it was found suitable for convey- 
 ances of any size, by land or water, from the 
 smallest toy to the support of a ponderous 
 railroad train ; from paper boats to a Toto 
 on paper. 
 
 These houses on the Toto are built of 
 chemically prepared wood, and will not burn. 
 So are the pavements. Every material com- 
 prising any portion of the Toto is incom- 
 bustible. Whatever was by nature inciner- 
 able has been so treated that combustion is 
 impossible. No person even who is liable 
 to spontaneous combustion has ever succeeded 
 in getting on board a Toto now we may 
 be sure that all fire is amply guarded against. 
 
 When standing on any one of the streets 
 of the Toto, we may say we are on deck 
 Standing on the flat roof which extends over, 
 each block of houses, we may say we are on 
 the promenade-deck, As the freest winds
 
 128 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 are harmless to the strong Toto, it has noth- 
 ing that could rightly be termed a hurricane- 
 deck. The portion of the Toto beneath the 
 houses and streets may be called the hold. 
 In the space down there the Toto carries 
 merchandise: up here, in airy houses, people. 
 The hold is reached through capacious open- 
 ings in the courtyard of each block, the 
 street pavements being left unbroken for 
 travel. 
 
 How is the Toto steered ? How is the rud- 
 der of so ponderous a vessel swung? From 
 a pilot-house located well forward, in the top 
 of a tower, the Toto is guided, easily guided, 
 yielding readily to the touch of one man, for 
 his arm is aided by a mechanical appliance 
 a thousand arms strong. As the little finger 
 of an organ player can thrill the mightiest 
 instrument of music if aided by mechanical 
 power, so can the arm of a pilot sway the helm 
 of the mightiest instrument of travel. The
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 129 
 
 Great Eastern was easily steered by one 
 finger, with the assistance of a steam con- 
 trivance. There is no difficulty in steering a 
 Toto. 
 
 All of the houses (except the lofty pilot- 
 house) are of a uniform height ; the flat 
 roofs are alike ; and thus each square is fitly 
 topped off with a promenade-deck. Here 
 are chairs for those who wish to sit ; here 
 is space for those who wish to walk ; and 
 here is a railing around. 
 
 Hotels comprise a large portion of the 
 houses on the Toto. Every house is crammed. 
 But the cool sea breeze will play around and 
 into and through them with such a ventilat- 
 ing effect, it will wholly dispel the obnoxious 
 ideas pertaining * to a crammed house on 
 land. A hotel quietly standing on the 
 heated earth and a hotel carried forward 
 over the cool sea differ widely. People 
 huddle together by instinct whenever the air
 
 130 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 is cool, to obtain comfortable warmth. And 
 here upon the Toto, what if every house is 
 crammed full ? " The more the merrier ! '' 
 Crowd on, young hearts, crowd on, and we 
 will keep each other warm. We shall not 
 need to clutch a wet railing, or put our arms 
 around a cold mast, or hug an iron capstan, 
 to save our lives, and after all embrace each 
 other in dying misery ; but, glowing with the 
 perennial life of health and happiness and 
 security, we shall throng the streets of the 
 Toto by day, and pack ourselves into its 
 houses at night with a nearness that will be 
 comfortable and cosy. 
 
 These streets will not be obstructed by 
 teams after the Toto has started. Vehicles 
 will not be needed in this little city. There 
 will be plenty of room for human locomotion. 
 
 We notice but one apothecary shop in 
 town. The invigorating effect of the sea air 
 will be so potent it will tone up every system
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 131 
 
 to a physical point where physic will not be 
 required. 
 
 The climate is so salubrious on the Toto 
 at sea that the rate of mortality is very 
 small. In every town of this size, of course, 
 deaths will sometimes occur ; yet this little city 
 is so delightfully healthy that its population 
 is generally larger at the end of the passage 
 than at the beginning. There are six jolly 
 doctors on board, to one cadaverous under- 
 taker and one forlorn druggist. 
 
 The sea air is so stimulating that no greater 
 stimulation is desired, and the happiness of 
 a journey on the Toto is so intoxicating 
 that no sublimer intoxication is possible. 
 Every one admits this openly. Therefore, 
 upon the Toto there are no grog-shops visible 
 to the naked eye. No one but a person 
 under the strain of arduous duties will be 
 expected to need the aid of inebriation. The 
 only man supposed to drink whiskey is the 
 pilot.
 
 i 3 a MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 Every Toto has a name, and this one's 
 name is Jonah. 
 
 We are to cross the Atlantic on this Toto. 
 In a few days we shall walk off into another 
 republic. 
 
 During the whole passage we need not 
 see the ocean if we choose not. But, under 
 the circumstances, we shall delight to see it. 
 Every day we shall take a stroll to the 
 suburbs to see the sea. People who are so 
 fortunate as to occupy those elegant houses 
 upon the border of the Toto can view the 
 ocean from their windows, but the rest of 
 us will often walk out to that elliptical 
 street on which those houses front, and there 
 we shall look out upon the "gray and mel- 
 ancholy waste," and listen to its grand and 
 ceaseless roar. It will not seem so gray 
 and melancholy as it did to some who lived 
 before us. 
 
 Noah did not have a Toto. Notwith-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 '33 
 
 standing it took him 120 years to build his 
 structure, an ark 450 feet in length, seven- 
 ty-five in width, and forty-five in height, was 
 a smaller thing than some of the vessels 
 that were bobbing around in 1877. How- 
 ever huge for Noah's day of small things, it 
 would seem small for this day of huge 
 things. The Toto is of quite a different shape 
 as well as size. And it ought to be. The 
 water which Noah encountered was mostly 
 from above ; the water we encounter is 
 mostly underneath ; so we can have plenty 
 of ventilation without water in ours. 
 
 Through the Narrows our ocean vehicle 
 can reach the ocean from the bay without 
 difficulty; and it might with even another 
 Toto on each side, for a Toto is only one- 
 sixth the width of the Narrows, and the 
 water is of immense depth. 
 
 Here we go, sailing out through this deep 
 strait, meeting and passing another Toto in 
 the narrowest part of the Narrows.
 
 i 3 4 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 The shallowest point in the whole channel 
 from New York to the sea is no less than 
 22 feet deep at low tide. And this is a soft 
 bottom. If the channel at any point were 
 not deep enough for the Toto, it could be 
 made deep enough ! and kept deep enough ! 
 In the Narrows the depth of water ranges 
 from 40 to 116 feet at low tide. 
 
 We steadily advance, emerging from the 
 lower bay, and moving out so quietly upon 
 that rolling prairie of water that we seem to 
 be borne along on a floating island, a thickly 
 populated little island, which grows smaller 
 and smaller in appearance, even to us who 
 are upon it, as we are carried further and 
 further out upon the broad field of the sea. 
 
 Any given distance looks so much less 
 upon the water than upon the land, that the 
 dimensions of the Toto out here on the 
 water do not seem so great as we had 
 naturally supposed. Gaining permission to
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 135 
 
 go up that tower to the pilot-house, we first 
 look out upon the Toto, then around upon 
 the ocean, and this structure looks much 
 smaller than we could ever have imagined 
 a structure to appear when it is 600 yards 
 long and 300 yards wide. Too big? It 
 looks almost too little ! 
 
 What moves the Toto? This is the most 
 important question pertaining to it ? When 
 it was first put, it was in this form : What 
 can move the Toto ? Many pronounced the 
 query unanswerable. They said that the 
 Toto could be built, but never could be oper- 
 ated. The author of the Toto anticipated 
 their objection, and met it squarely before- 
 hand, in this way : If a small object can be 
 moved through water by mechanical power, 
 it only needs great mechanical power to 
 move a great object. Even less proportional 
 power is required to drive a large vessel 
 than a small one of the same shape.
 
 136 MR. GfffM'S DREAM. 
 
 The Toto is not of the same shape ; a 
 broad structure moves through water at a 
 disadvantage regarding power ; but what is 
 that compared to the immeasurable advan- 
 tage of safety and comfort! Whatever 
 amount of power is requisite to move the 
 Toto, the power can be supplied. There 
 is nothing so great, which man can put 
 together, but man can move it by steam. 
 A large aggregation of matter only requires a 
 large aggregation of power to move it. Steam 
 will move the Toto. If any superior motor 
 shall be devised in the future, the Toto will 
 use it, whether it be cold vapor, warm heat, 
 spiritualism, wet dryness, perfect fluid, sunlight, 
 moonshine, wave motion, will power, yeast, 
 natural affinity, slander, the tide, the ballot, 
 perpetual motion, woman suffrage, odd force, 
 or any other odd force. But steam is adequate 
 to the propulsion of any bulk through the 
 readily yielding fluid water. When the Toto
 
 MR. GJTSM'S DREAM. 137 
 
 is ready to start, we will brighten up those 
 jolly fires below, wake up the screw propellers 
 to a lively sense of duty, get up a revolution 
 among them, and travel by the method of pro- 
 pulsion now in vogue swimming ahead by 
 twisting the heels. We might have sails, with 
 no fear that the wind would tip us over ; but 
 the appliances for sails would be cumbersome ; 
 we shall use steam. A few halting minds will 
 still doubt that the Toto will ever move. Let 
 their conservative souls be harried by the re- 
 flection that their greatest grandfathers thought 
 it absurd to suppose that steam could move 
 the smallest vessel ; ridiculous to entertain the 
 notion that we could burn black stones to 
 warm our houses, and a mere gas to light 
 them ; folly to believe that we could ever send 
 a message to a distant land with lightning 
 speed. The world moves and the world is a 
 great deal larger than the Toto. The world of 
 thought moves. The power that moves it
 
 138 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 now will move it in the future, continuing its 
 progress through all time. Ability which put 
 the first small ship upon its course is working 
 yet, and will discover means to satisfy man's 
 growing wants. The field of invention has 
 not been trampled down. Vast plains of im- 
 provement are barely touched. Rising in par- 
 tial obscurity, loom gigantic mountains yet to 
 be scaled, whose peaks will be carved by 
 explorers into enduring monuments of fame. 
 Our descendants will not envy us for having 
 lived in so apt an age for invention ; the 
 greatest results of searching thought are yet to 
 come ; the brightest pages in the history of 
 mankind's progress will be written in the 
 future. Nature is inexhaustible. The Toto 
 shall move, as truly as Galileo's earth moved. 
 The many who doubted that were ancestors of 
 those who will doubt this. Builders of bob- 
 bing things called ships, now let us have a 
 Toto!
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 139 
 
 That was in 1877. 
 
 When the leaven had worked sufficiently 
 the Toto was forthcoming, and its success 
 when once upon the ocean was immediate, 
 going beyond the greatest expectations of 
 conservatives and flush with the highest 
 hopes of enthusiastic builders. The Toto 
 was so thoroughly unique in its design, 
 bringing with it such a new departure from 
 all previous modes of travelling, that its advent 
 was the event of the century. 
 
 O, that day ! when the first Toto moved ! 
 Moved from New York to cross the ocean ! 
 What multitudes pressed to the Battery, 
 crammed every street for miles above, 
 covered every hill slope, commanding a 
 view of the bay ! Millions were gath- 
 ered within that horizon ! Square miles 
 of people ! Humans in groups of countless 
 hundreds of thousands, all with their hearts 
 full, looked upon that sight, and wept. The
 
 140 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 sensation was too intense for calm and cold 
 endurance. It was a stirring, swelling, rous- 
 ing motive, which nothing less than the 
 pageantry of war could rival. And this was 
 a peaceful accomplishment, undeniably worthy, 
 and solidly useful. The shining emblems of 
 the glory of refined barbarity, modern war, 
 plated savagery, which rears itself in triumph 
 over desolation and deadness and sadness, 
 did not glitter here. To act the studied part 
 of gaudy splendor would not have height- 
 ened the simple majesty of this occasion. 
 Its grandeur rose above all meretricious 
 adornment. The noble spirit of Destruction, 
 with all the prestige of its honored prow- 
 ess, with all its pride of the homage paid 
 to its usefulness in the past, began to per- 
 ceive that its mission among enlightened 
 people was waning ; the world at last was 
 uniting, nations were understanding each 
 other, and all were becoming engrossed by
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 141 
 
 the nobler spirit of Construction. This 
 country had just emerged from a labor 
 crisis. Unemployed thousands of men, in 
 these hard times, had run the risky gauntlet 
 of vagrancy on one hand and useless over- 
 production on the other, till hoarded capital 
 in abundance was poured out for their em- 
 ployment in building a Toto. That was a 
 move toward thrift, a successful move toward 
 instant thrift, restoring the equilibrium of labor 
 at once by commencing this urgently needed 
 work. Enforced idleness was relieved ; wast- 
 ing lives were turned to account ; and the 
 darkness of that peculiarly dangerous juncture 
 passed away. The domain of work had now 
 been enlarged ; every man had something to 
 do ; all were earning and spending money ; 
 business arose like the sun rising into a clear 
 day ; the nation prospered again. The first 
 swim of the first Toto brought the grand holi- 
 day! There was universal joy. Every buoy-
 
 142 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 ant nature felt inspired, and every nature for 
 the nonce was buoyant. Gladness reigned. 
 Usefulness had won! The Toto at last ex- 
 isted, and was majestically moving upon its 
 course, beginning its career of unexampled 
 usefulness ! As millions of eyes gazed upon 
 that sublime spectacle, millions of hearts were 
 wrought up till those eyes could see no longer. 
 The greatness of the event was too impressive 
 for stolid indifference. All were bright, gay, 
 jubilant. And more : Their minds were ex- 
 panded, strengthened, ennobled. Up into the 
 realm of useful endeavor, profitable work, 
 noble enterprise, every soul was lifted by the 
 achievement those millions beheld. They saw 
 the token of a new era dawning. The ease of 
 travel now across the rough Atlantic, the 
 mingling of all the peoples of Europe in their 
 suddenly augmented flow through every inter- 
 vening country to reach the Toto, their 
 friendly communion everywhere in drifting
 
 MR. GfffM'S DREAM. 143 
 
 back to their homes, the healthful mixture of 
 every shade of opinion and feeling as the result 
 of this new impetus to travel, the mental ex- 
 pansion, the enlightenment, the sweeping 
 away of old prejudices, the real progress, the 
 improvement of the intellect, was to elevate 
 the tone of the world, create a community of 
 interests, unite all lands by centering their pro- 
 gressive thought upon one great object. The 
 Toto in mid-ocean was a hyphen connecting 
 the Old world with the New. It had drawn 
 upon itself the attention of every civilized 
 nation possessing a sea-coast, and in their com- 
 bined scrutiny of this one object, and their 
 united admiration of its worth, all dropped the 
 less worthy enterprises of wholesale human 
 destruction, and devoted their surplus energies 
 to the construction of Totos. Idle display was 
 flung to the winds, and works of usefulness 
 commenced. The new ear was begun. 
 
 On that memorable day, when the first
 
 144 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Toto was moving, was gliding seaward the 
 focus of glances by millions, and there were 
 flowing toward it the acclamations of that 
 host, that measureless array of gazers from 
 hilltops above hilltops and the Jersey and 
 island shores, there was also flowing through 
 countless brains a little rhyme; not poetry, 
 but rhyme : 
 
 This is the Toto which Vanderbilt built, 
 Which Vanderbilt built, 
 Which Vanderbilt built, 
 Built to advance mankind ! 
 He answered the people's unanimous call, 
 In misery all, 
 Replete with gall, 
 Needing a ship of this kind. 
 
 Seasick and perishing thousands cried out; 
 He heard the shout, 
 He brought this about, 
 Taking a hint not the slyest. 
 His wonderful genius for organization 
 And administration 
 Moved every nation, 
 Lifting America highest!
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 145 
 
 When he enlisted ;he men and the means 
 He wrought such scenes 
 As kings and queens 
 And angels came to see ; 
 Honoring this above all other lands 
 With ocean sands; 
 And now it stands 
 Peerless regarding the sea! 
 
 The Toto's a vessel that's strong and staunch 
 From root to branch; 
 And with it we launch 
 An era no man can stop. 
 Here on this day it is plainly shown, 
 And soon will be known 
 From zone to zone,, 
 This side of the globe is the top / 
 
 Of course there was a great deal of poetry 
 also floating around in those times, upon the 
 same subject. 
 
 Now we are travelling splendidly. All on 
 board are comfortable, and are safe, albeit on 
 the ocean. There is nothing flimsy about 
 this conveyance for the sea. This is no
 
 i 4 6 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 flighty basket in the air. We are not at 
 the mercy of fickle currents of wind. We 
 are not sailing off promiscuously among 
 the stars, a little globe of our own. We 
 are making the most of our advantages 
 in taking the water for a support, instead 
 of overlooking that matter, getting above 
 such a thing, kiting away from our sphere, 
 roaming an uncomfortable region, hung high 
 in the air to a bag of gas, a thing that 
 may easily break, turning aeronauts into 
 aerolites, compelling them to end their fast 
 trip in a life-boat, sailing vertically from 
 the sky to the sea. A balloon is a grand 
 plaything, and people may go to sea with 
 that conveyance without being seasick ; but, 
 for the multitude to travel with the least 
 expense and with the greatest comfort, it is 
 manifestly safer as well as cheaper to take 
 the best foundation obtainable. For travel- 
 ling over land it is the earth itself, and for
 
 MR. GffSM'S DREAM. 147 
 
 travelling over the sea it is the water. The 
 ground will freely support the heaviest bas- 
 ket or car. The air will not furnish such 
 support ; costly means are required to hold 
 it up. Therefore any method of traversing 
 the upper regions must be at a disadvan- 
 tage. 
 
 The Toto is substantial. Its advance is 
 sure. There is no conceivable obstacle. 
 
 The winds? We need not fear that any 
 wind which will ever blow can tip over this 
 great raft, or injure a fibre of its solid sub- 
 stance. 
 
 The waves? At the touch of the Toto 
 the highest waves fall, and the hardy swim- 
 mer glides over their soft and loose and 
 yielding bodies easily. 
 
 But the rocks? Will not the Toto run 
 upon unyielding rocks, and will not the 
 sharp rocks puncture the life out of the 
 Toto? Impossible. If the Toto should by
 
 148 . MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 accident become unmanageable, and be car- 
 ried astray, the monster could not be demol- 
 ished by anything it met. Of course the 
 Toto is built in water-tight sections, that a 
 leak in any part would not ingulf the whole. 
 A ship of the old style might be divided 
 into any number of water-tight compart- 
 ments, yet what were they, all united, but 
 simply one ? It was but one poor, weak, 
 light, paltry thing, to be tossed about upon 
 the water as a unit, with all its united com- 
 partments. A single wave could grasp it, 
 and the whole was gone ! One billow could 
 seize it as though it were a bubble, and lift 
 it high, and fling it, one whole toy, upon the 
 jagged rocks, every compartment then divid- 
 ing and subdividing, all together dashing and 
 crashing into the scattered flinders of a com- 
 plete wreck! But the Toto could not be 
 thus acted upon. If haply it were disabled, 
 it would merely drift ; slowly drift ; quietly
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 149 
 
 drift. The ocean could not concentrate suf- 
 ficient power to destroy it. No billow could 
 lift it, no wave could sink it, no iceberg 
 could crush it. The monster would steadily 
 drift ; and, wherever it might float, there is 
 not a rock that could destroy it. The Toto 
 would drift until it touched, and there it 
 would stay until its constitutional disabilities 
 were removed, when its course could be 
 directed elsewhere. If the gigantic vessel 
 were madly driven with all its force upon 
 the hugest rock, and one of its compart- 
 ments wholly smashed, yet the wounded mon- 
 ster would remain not a thing to be flung 
 away by the angry Neptune even then. Or 
 if, peradventure, the Toto should blindly rush 
 into collision with another Toto, still the two 
 great fellows could not annihilate each other 
 with one blow. Always retaining such im- 
 mense strength in reserve, the vast resources 
 of each would enable it to live and move.
 
 J5o MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 It would not die by one stroke, however 
 crippled. 
 
 Here upon the Toto we cannot but think 
 of the way our early fathers travelled : sail- 
 ing on a quiet river or a placid lake in a 
 thing which the ripples could not in the 
 least disturb, yet bobbing out upon the sea 
 in a shell that a single wave might over- 
 power. 
 
 And now we are ready to answer in a 
 thoroughly practical manner the fervid old 
 conundrum : 
 
 "Why do the roaring ocean 
 
 And the night wind, cold and bleak, 
 As they beat at the heart of the mother, 
 Drive the color from her cheek ? " 
 
 Simply because when the bleak winds blow so, 
 Her boy at sea is not on a Toto. 
 
 In this connection we bethink ourselves 
 of another puzzling newspaper paragraph we 
 read in the olden time :
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 151 
 
 "A sea stove in the bark Mary Jane let the water 
 into her; and she went to the bottom." 
 
 People in reading that used to ask what 
 sort of a thing a sea stove was, and how it 
 let the water in. The idea that human beings 
 would go to sea in a structure so frail that 
 the sea could stave it in, was incredible to 
 some people, and yet it was true. The nu- 
 merous wrecks in those times caused the 
 people to send out fearful howls as well as 
 dreadful barks ; they issued more than five 
 thousand barks before there was one Toto. 
 
 As we move steadily forward on the ocean, 
 and distance begins to lend enchantment to 
 the view of the land we are leaving, our 
 thoughts embrace the far-off time when a ves- 
 sel called the Great Eastern was launched 
 upon the sea. We remember what was then 
 considered its immensity, and how we laughed. 
 We remember, too, how we marvelled at its 
 non-success as a passenger vessel. But now,
 
 152 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 when we have climbed to the top of our house 
 upon the Toto, stepped out upon its level 
 roof, and taken chairs for an hour to enjoy the 
 delicious breeze from the watery plain before 
 us, we think the matter over, and we seem to 
 see the cause of the Great Easterns failure: 
 As human beings are slow to risk themselves 
 where they think the chances of life are doubt- 
 ful, it is not strange that a larger vessel than 
 usual of the old-fashioned shape appeared un- 
 wieldy, and therefore unsafe. What a contrast 
 between that great little thing and this ! 
 When we look around upon the Toto, and see 
 the breadth as well as length, giving it the 
 appearance as well as the fact of solidity and 
 strength ; when we think what an area is cov- 
 ered by this level giant, rendering the waves 
 puny in comparison and powerless, we no 
 longer wonder that people were shy of a mon- 
 ster of the old shape, whose size made it only 
 look cumbersome without adding to its safety.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 153 
 
 The Toto is a horse of a different color, and 
 carries every one without fear. 
 
 We are now well out upon the Atlantic ; 
 not " half seas over," nor anything like it, 
 but we are making steady progress ; and the 
 question arises, not "To be or not to be?" 
 as it used to, nor " How long will it take 
 to get across ? " but " How long will this 
 delightful trip last ? " The fleetest vessels 
 used to cross the Atlantic in nine days. 
 Occasionally one would make a quicker pas- 
 sage ; the steamer City of Berlin arrived in 
 New York, Sept. 25, 1875, in 7 days and 18 
 hours from Queenstown ; and returned in 7 
 days, 15 hours; and 48 minutes, actual time, 
 from New York to Queenstown ; but the 
 usual time for the fastest steamers was nine 
 days. Those nine days, trien and there, 
 seemed longer than nine weeks would, now 
 and here. So we are not in a hurry. With 
 the comforts of a sea-voyage on the Toto,
 
 154 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 the urgent desire for swift-sailing vessels 
 ended. Naturally enough. Put a man in a 
 nice place, and he is not in a hurry to leave 
 it ; the Toto is a nice place to spend a few 
 weeks, and mankind are not in a hurry to 
 leave it We may be three weeks on the 
 way. They will be the pleasantest three 
 weeks of our lives. If it were desired to 
 make a quicker passage, the Toto could take 
 us across in nine days, or even less. But 
 we should have to pay the Toto much 
 moneys. For nothing is so expensive as 
 speed. It costs a great deal to keep even 
 one man going if he is fast And in every 
 kind of locomotion in every body through- 
 out the universe, whatever is gained in speed 
 is lost in power. To a body moving through 
 water, the resistance increases with the speed 
 in a compound ratio. That is, unless the 
 theory of " stream lines " proves that water 
 offers no resistance to bodies moving through
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 155 
 
 it. In which case, it will only be necessary 
 to substitute some other word for. "resist- 
 ance." It certainly requires power to push 
 the smoothest vessel through the most "per- 
 fect fluid." As matter in every other form 
 offers resistance to the passage of bodies 
 through it (in addition to friction), it seems 
 as though if water does not it ought to. 
 Air is a much lighter fluid than water, 800 
 times lighter, yet the resistance of mere air, 
 in a tornado, is greater than the power of 
 man to walk against it. Is it mere friction ? 
 By giving the Toto a large share of our 
 back pay, he would put us through the waves 
 to Europe quickly. But we are not running 
 away from our own country ; we do not care 
 to make the journey in a shorter time than 
 three weeks. With comfottable houses to 
 live in, pleasant streets to travel in, a boule- 
 vard around the whole, where we may walk, 
 talk, run, play, sit, sing, think, drink, wink,
 
 '56 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 blink, go to the brink, and never sink, nor 
 shrink why, we are living atthe seaside! 
 
 We do not want to hasten away. We 
 have gone to a watering-place to spend a 
 few weeks. No matter if it should be two 
 months. We are happy. We are tranquil 
 We are not jeopardizing our lives. We 
 are not even imperilling our equanimity. 
 We are not seeking health and finding none. 
 We are not studying geometry by walking 
 up and down an inclined plane, or studying 
 natural philosophy to know how to do it. 
 We are moving in a bee-line, with friendly 
 stomachs, cheerful faces, placid tempers, light 
 hearts, untroubled bodies, and contented 
 souls. This is all due to the Toto. 
 
 The Toto has been so great a boon to 
 emigrants galore, that here and now and 
 often every day upon the Toto we hear their 
 voices rising by the thousand as they sing 
 the grand old song:
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. . 157 
 
 " We are out on an ocean sailing, 
 
 Homeward bound we smoothly glide ; 
 We are out on an ocean sailing, 
 To a home beyond the tide ! 
 
 " Millions now are safely landed 
 
 Over on the golden shore ; 
 Millions more are on their journey, 
 
 Yet there's room for millions more ! " 
 
 Before the Toto came into being, away 
 back there in the nineteenth century, when 
 the idea of building a Toto was first suggest- 
 ed, what a stir it created ! The very idea 
 touched the world like a bombshell. Many 
 believed the whole thing had exploded into 
 a million fragments. And so it had ; but it 
 had done its work. 
 
 At first, like all new enterprises, it met 
 conservative criticism. Fogies declared that 
 to build a Toto was too great an under- 
 taking : but the masses of this progressive 
 people began to compare the undertaking 
 with Neptune's undertaking, and decided to
 
 158 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 favor the Toto. Knowing ones called the 
 idea a mere speculation. Sellers told buyers 
 " There's millions in it !" Unbelievers went 
 down into their grave graves, taking the old 
 hulks along with 'them, gravely singing 
 " Hold on ; don't give up the ship for the 
 Toto." Some would not give up the ship, 
 and the ship gave up them. Nothing less 
 than a Toto was suitable for crossing the 
 ocean. Until the advent of the Toto, every 
 ship had been called feminine, a she. They 
 were all weaker vessels, and never should 
 have been put to such hard work as many 
 of them had to undergo. Poor things, 
 their powers of endurance were tested beyond 
 all reasonable bounds, and they lost their 
 lives, many of them. Ah ! too small-waisted, 
 too fragile and frail, were those weaker ves- 
 sels. A stronger vessel came. The Toto 
 was a he ! Neptune and he agreed with 
 each other immediately, and have had no
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 159 
 
 trouble since. With the other vessels, there 
 was frequently a general falling out. 
 
 When it was decided to build a Toto, and 
 builders mooted a way to build it, some de- 
 clared it a problem. It proved to be no 
 problem at all. A simple granite mole was 
 built, in the form of a letter U, the two 
 ends running out into the water; then, with 
 a coffer-dam connecting the two ends, and 
 the water pumped out, nothing was easier 
 than to build the Toto inside of this im- 
 mense dry dock. When it was finished they 
 removed the coffer-dam, and the boat was 
 ready to start, like any ferry-boat from its U 
 shaped dock. 
 
 Behold that gracefully sweeping line of 
 houses on the Toto, facing its outer street, 
 extending around the diminutive city, three- 
 quarters of a mile, a curvilinear row of the 
 best hotels and private dwellings. All front- 
 ing directly upon the ocean, all possess a
 
 160 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 location which is superb. Every one looks 
 pleasantly down on the water. Their faces 
 are lines of beauty, perfect curves, and are 
 lovely. Neptune tries his best to kiss them, 
 but he never succeeds. He dances around 
 before them all ; he is as fascinatingly grace- 
 ful as the monster can be ; now and then he 
 reaches up as high as he can, but they hold 
 up their faces higher, refusing his eager ad- 
 vances, quietly mocking the old fellow's pre- 
 sumptuous rudeness. They seem to like it, 
 too, and sweetly smile upon him constantly. 
 Well, they are too good for him, and he 
 knows it if he knows anything. But he 
 seems always yearning toward them, and 
 they return his every glance, in a harmless 
 kind of flirtation. There is very little love 
 lost between them. 
 
 Every room in every house on the Toto 
 is lighted by gas, and in winter is warmed 
 by steam from one common source of sup-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 161 
 
 ply. The system of sewerage resembles that 
 of a city on land. Ingeniously constructed 
 valves at the outlets prevent the inward flow 
 of the waves. Comfort and cleanliness are 
 well provided for. The Toto is a pleasant 
 little city to dwell in. During the summer 
 it is agreeably cool, and in winter warmer 
 than the cold cities on land, for the gr$at 
 body of water beneath it maintains a more 
 equable temperature than the great body of 
 baking and freezing dirt on which mankind 
 chiefly resides. 
 
 In former times people all resided on the 
 land, only one-fourth of the surface of the 
 globe, regarding the other three-fourths as a 
 carriage-way, on which they could generally 
 cross from one continent to another, by 
 jouncing along all the way. When a ca- 
 tastrophe occurred on the road, all whom it 
 did not silence forever it petrified for a 
 time, in their amazement that the little bit
 
 1 62 MR, GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 of a thing they had sent out to jolt over 
 that rough road to Europe, had gone to 
 smash. It seemed strange that so nice a 
 little carriage, made expressly, put together 
 so closely, water-tight in every part, well 
 painted, varnished, garaished, provided with 
 the richest upholstery, could start for Europe 
 and come to naught. And they sent out 
 another just like her. 
 
 A majority of the people on the Toto 
 are passengers, but there are persons who 
 have lavished money on apartments for the 
 summer. And there are others so charmed 
 with a life on the ocean wave in a mascu- 
 line ship, they enjoy its delights the year 
 round. 
 
 Little did the builders of the first Toto 
 surmise what an institution they founded. 
 Enthusiastic as they were, it was impossible 
 for any mortal man in that day to grasp the 
 whole breadth of the future in his freest con-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 163 
 
 ception ; the reality outruns the wildest esti- 
 mates of those who favored progress on the 
 ocean. They put upon the sea a Toto ; no 
 lesser article would satisfy existing wants. 
 Looking beyond, they could not measure or 
 conjecture the entire sweep of its useful- 
 ness; they could only see the future grandly 
 growing ! 
 
 Now let us take a backward leap from 
 the distant future, and view the subject from 
 the standpoint of our time. 
 
 The Toto is the coming ship. No pro- 
 gressive man will doubt it, upon reflection. 
 Conservatives will treat the matter with 
 scorn. So be it. Even the most advanced 
 and practical of thinking minds will receive 
 the startling idea with a grin; but calcula- 
 tion will remove all doubt concerning the 
 feasibility of the plan.
 
 164 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 The advent of the Toto will be an epoch, 
 beginning the glorious era of man's reign 
 over Neptune. Until that time, Neptune 
 will reign over man. But the change is to 
 occur. Whether the people of this gener- 
 ation shall honor themselves by that grand 
 event, or allow it to slip into the hands of 
 those who are to come with outstretched 
 fingers ready to grasp it, let this generation 
 determine. The world's widening future will 
 certainly take it in. Shall the present age 
 neglect a grand opportunity? The Toto is 
 conceived, and the time is coming when it 
 will surely be produced. The world's long 
 future, without a Toto, would be a dismal 
 future indee'd. If the existing peril and misery 
 of ocean travel were perpetuated through all 
 coming time, what a progressive people 
 would traverse this planet ! 
 
 A railroad across the American continent, 
 3,000 miles, was built, and has become in-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 165 
 
 dispensable. When easy transit across the 
 Atlantic Ocean is attained, it will likewise 
 be regarded as indispensable. Constructing 
 that long railroad to California has obviated 
 the misery of a sea-voyage around to that 
 distant region. If a railroad for a like pur- 
 pose in the other direction to Europe- 
 were practicable, it would undoubtedly be 
 constructed. A railroad extending 3,000 miles 
 does not seem too great an undertaking, 
 though the average cost of 3,000 miles of 
 railway, in this country, is $165,348,000. But, 
 instead of a structure 3,000 miles in length, 
 a neat little thing only 600 yards long and 
 300 yards wide will be sufficient for the pur- 
 pose of crossing the ocean steadily, and will 
 be infinitely safer than any railroad ever built 
 in any land. Three thousand miles of rail- 
 way comprise a much greater structure than 
 it seems in actually looking at it, for only a 
 small portion is visible at any one point of
 
 1 66 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 observation. It is an immensely long structure, 
 much longer than the Toto. The Toto is 
 wider, but the width of the Toto is not nearly 
 so great in proportion, as the length of the 
 railroad. If 3,000 miles of railway, with all 
 its appurtenances, were massed together, piled 
 up on a piece of ground 600 yards long and 
 300 yards wide, the greatness of that bulk 
 would be astounding! The amount of ma- 
 terial used in 3,000 miles of railway, together 
 with its shops and stations and grand central 
 depots and rolling stock and paraphernalia, 
 if it could all be seen in one huge pile, 
 would be so enormous that even the Toto 
 would look petty beside it. Yet that im- 
 mense pile of railway iron and wood, &c., 
 costing over 165,000,000 of dollars, would 
 represent only 3,000 miles of railway, while 
 railways in this country alone have in some 
 recent years been increasing at the rate 
 of 8,000 miles a year, at an expense of more
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 167 
 
 than $400,600,000 a year! In the United 
 States we have now 73,000 miles of railway ; 
 let us have 600 yards of Toto. 
 
 Place it upon that most important route, 
 that route which is necessarily travelled a 
 great deal now in spite of its discomforts, 
 and the easy-going Toto on that extensively 
 used ferry will be the right masculine in 
 the right place. 
 
 The ocean telegraph was a worthy and 
 noble undertaking. Millions were ventured 
 in support of the doubtful project, the un- 
 certain enterprise became a grand success, 
 and now for several years men have been 
 shooting their ideas across the ocean. Dur- 
 ing those same years many of the same 
 men have betaken themselves to the other 
 side. Some have not been able to get 
 half way across; most have succeeded, after 
 a fashion (and what a fashion !) in reaching 
 the destination they desired. But think
 
 1 68 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 what they have all been doing on the 
 way : Extolling the merits of the ocean 
 cable, thinking what a grand advance had 
 been made by man at the bottom of the 
 sea, yet never thinking what a grander ad- 
 vance might be made by man at the top 
 of the sea. Glad of such a good way to 
 get their thoughts carried, while despairing 
 of any good way to get their bodies and 
 souls carried. Progressive age! 
 
 It is only a few years since the ocean 
 telegraph was undertaken and sneered at as 
 impossible, yet now there are more than 
 50,000 miles of submarine telegraph in 
 use. 
 
 Public buildings grow more stupendous ; 
 ocean steamers merely increase in number ; 
 the largest are mere trifles in a storm. One 
 of the many passenger lines across the 
 Atlantic numbers twenty-seven steamers. 
 
 If all the dead ships could be raised from
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 169 
 
 their deep graves, it would be found that 
 more materials were used in their construction 
 than would have sufficed to build a dozen 
 Totos; and there is money enough likewise 
 at the bottom of the sea to have furnished 
 them all more sumptuously than any first- 
 class steamship extant above the waves. The 
 legion of vessels lost are beyond redemption. 
 A multitude of living ships are going in the 
 old road to destruction. Ships are now 
 building in the same old way ; thousands of 
 vessels are at this moment taking the old 
 form ; thousands more are yet to be built, 
 in the scattered little shipyards of the world, 
 upon the same old fatal pattern, endowed 
 with that same weakness that has proved so 
 often frailty, and launched upon the roughest 
 tide of life, to meet with premature death. 
 
 If a housebuilder saw his house sink into 
 the earth, he would build no more houses 
 without considering well the foundation.
 
 170 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Builders of vessels, consider the foundation, 
 and adapt the structure to it. Spread. Noth- 
 ing narrow will hold its own upon a soft 
 base. It is the widest and flattest weight 
 which will sink the least and stand the firmest, 
 on a foundation which is moist and soft. 
 The ocean is moist and soft. Width, width 
 is required in anything that would float 
 securely upon it. 
 
 Were a Toto now plying the ocean be- 
 tween America and Europe, where are the 
 fogies who would seek to place an injunction 
 upon its movements? Who would wish to 
 destroy its usefulness, give up the splendor 
 of its greatness, lose forever the glory 
 its presence would reflect upon mankind ? 
 Where live the people who would prefer 
 that there were no such structure, that they 
 themselves should be compelled to use the 
 means of transit in vogue before the Toto 
 existed ? Who is the public-spirited man
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 171 
 
 who would argue in favor of going back to 
 the old, ridiculous method, painfully bobbing 
 over the sea ? What nation possessing a 
 Toto would throw away the boon ? What 
 great government, on building and operating 
 the first Toto, would not esteem it an honor, 
 and proudly point to that evidence of the 
 nation's advancement beyond every other 
 maritime nation on earth ? If these are 
 cogent reasons for holding on to the posses- 
 sion of a Toto when built, they are solid 
 arguments for building one. What great 
 land with an ocean rolling up to its borders 
 in loud defiance can stand the taunts of 
 Neptune any longer? or afford to be behind 
 in the coming struggle of nations for the 
 first honors in the warfare against the com- 
 mon enemy, Neptune ? 
 
 Neptune is a big, strong fellow, and he 
 wrestles with giant might, but the Toto can 
 stand it all. Neptune has a great round
 
 i72 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 body, measuring 150,000,000 of square miles 
 upon its surface, while the Toto will cover 
 only one twenty-seven hundred millionth of 
 it, yet the Toto will endure all its upheav- 
 ings without getting agitated. 
 
 The work of building a Toto is not so 
 great as it might seem. Rearing an edifice 
 to be used upon land, if it were desired to 
 build the structure 600 yards long, builders 
 would erect it without any thought of diffi- 
 culty. Building a structure 600 yards by 
 300 yards, for the land or the sea, is only a 
 question of time. If the length were 600 
 feet, it would be plainly feasible, as the 
 Great Eastern is 680 feet. In building 
 a bridge or any structure on a large 
 scale, when it has been built 600 feet, 
 another 600 feet can be built, can it not ? 
 And another 600 feet can be added to it. 
 That is the entire length of the Toto. Its 
 width is only half.
 
 MR. GfflM'S DREAM. 173 
 
 The means for building a Toto are 
 plentiful, and running to waste. So many 
 men are out of employment! So much 
 money is out of employment ! Money and 
 labor are the factors which carry out great 
 enterprises. They are now ready and waiting. 
 Not wanted anywhere, except in something 
 new. All the old industries are full, and 
 thousands of surplus workers are vainly 
 seeking employment Machinery has taken 
 the place of hand labor to such an extent 
 that hosts of persons are squeezed out of 
 every industrial pursuit. New enterprises 
 must be opened up. Great enterprises. Now 
 is the time for the largest enterprises to be in- 
 augurated, for the means of carrying them 
 forward are now most painfully yearning to 
 be used. They have built many cities, 
 large and small ; they can certainly build 
 another. Just now they have nothing else 
 to do, and ache to build the floating little
 
 174 MR - GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 city, the Toto. If Chicago were burned down 
 again, they would build it again ; if the best 
 part of Boston were burned down again, up 
 they would build it again ; though either 
 task would be greater than building a Toto ! 
 Men are suffering keenly for want of em- 
 ployment. Why shall not mechanics be fur- 
 nished with mechanical labor ? They are 
 told of unoccupied lands in the Western ter- 
 ritories, millions of acres ; but those millions 
 of acres are mostly mountain and desert; 
 nearly all the good land is now occupied. 
 Even were it not, agriculture affords little 
 pleasure and less profit to mechanics. They 
 feel no attraction toward unoccupied lands, 
 and surely the unoccupied lands can get 
 along without them. Unoccupied lands are 
 not suffering for their services, but wretch- 
 edly occupied oceans are. 
 
 Men of money, a vast deal of wretched- 
 ness will be prevented, on land as well as at
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 175 
 
 sea, by giving a host of men employment in 
 building a Toto. The project will always be 
 in order henceforth, and just now it is par- 
 ticularly timely. 
 
 Construct a Toto, and you virtually bridge 
 the ocean. That bridge will carry multitudes 
 of persons who would never otherwise go 
 across on account of the troubles and perils 
 of the voyage. We all "speak well of the 
 bridge that carries us safely over." And this 
 induces others to come. Build a Toto, and 
 ocean travel will be vastly increased. 
 
 The patronage of the very first Toto will 
 be equalled only by its capacity. Steamers 
 of the old style will be left in the lurch. 
 Travellers will flock to the Toto as they 
 would rush from any danger to safety. If 
 you choose to limit all persons on the great 
 structure to the space they now enjoy on a 
 first-class vessel, the capacity of a Toto will 
 be immense. And it would be easier than
 
 176 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 on a rolling vessel to put up with the spacious- 
 ness of a coffin for sleeping purposes. 
 
 The feasibility of constructing a Toto will 
 not be arrived at by any one who considers 
 it merely an enlarged ship of the present 
 style. It is an entirely different structure. 
 Any person looking upon the huge black hull 
 of the Great Eastern or any other steamer, and 
 imagining a ship of that style, but of vastly 
 increased dimensions, would naturally shake 
 his head at the idea of building a boat so 
 big. And well he might, for such a boat 
 would not be practicable at all. It would 
 draw too much water, to begin with, and 
 for many other obvious reasons it would 
 not be suitable. The Toto is projected upon 
 a plan entirely new, with no reference to the 
 little old shipbuilding plan which has proved 
 such a perfect failure. 
 
 The great width of the Toto is a feature 
 which gives it immense advantage in the
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 177 
 
 matter of strength. A vessel of the present 
 long and narrow style is required to be built 
 of the most carefully selected materials of 
 the choicest quality, to give adequate strength 
 to the slim thing, which sometimes is dashed 
 to pieces. The Great Eastern, with 680 feet 
 of length, has only 70 feet of width except 
 at the paddle-boxes and the engines behind 
 them, where the width is 107 feet. Its length 
 enables it to travel smoothly when cutting 
 the waves at right angles, and even to cross 
 the waves diagonally with but little rocking. 
 But alas for the Great Eastern in the trough 
 of the sea ! It rolls prodigiously. Seldom 
 does it get into that predicament, but the 
 case has sometimes happened, and has proved 
 the impotence of even the mightiest ship 
 built upon the narrow principle. There is 
 not width enough to that greatest of old-fash- 
 ioned vessels to enable it to stand quietly 
 on the ocean when the waves are coming
 
 178 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 broadside on. Then arises in the mind of 
 the passenger a statement of the facetious 
 ship-agent that lured him here : " Seasick- 
 ness is unknown on board this vessel." 
 
 The Toto will draw less water than some 
 would suppose. A vessel of the existing 
 narrow form, with its entire width tapering 
 down to a narrow keel, must extend deep 
 into the water ; but the Toto, broad at the 
 bottom, and for the most part flat, cannot be 
 pressed deep, unless excessively freighted. 
 
 It might be averred that the Toto is too 
 thin. That is, that the vertical thickness of 
 a structure spreading so wide, and not ex- 
 tending to a remarkable depth, would not 
 give it sufficient strength, and that a vessel 
 of the old style is really of a stouter form 
 than the widespreading Toto. This would 
 be true if the Toto were to proceed over 
 the water in the style of those vessels, rear- 
 ing and pitching, and rolling and plunging.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 179 
 
 If the Toto were to go cavorting over the 
 sea, tossed about like a chip, if one side 
 were to be lifted till the Toto stood at an 
 angle of 135 degrees with the surface of 
 the ocean, and then the other side were to 
 come up likewise, and so on, till the Toto 
 had crossed the ocean, there would be little 
 left of the Toto after such a shaking. But 
 as the Toto is a broad, level structure, it will 
 not be subject to such goings on. Neptune 
 can not play with the Toto. When Nep- 
 tune's bosom swells, he sometimes creates 
 waves a hundred feet broad, but the Toto 
 is broader still, and Neptune can never get 
 the Toto into the trough of the sea. Ves- 
 sels of the present narrow form are lifted 
 and lowered, and lifted and lowered, and 
 tipped and knocked, and kicked and shoved 
 and rolled from side to side between the 
 rolling waves for a vessel is narrower than a 
 wave ; but the Toto can never get caught
 
 i8o MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 between the crests of two great billows, for 
 its width is so great it will extend across 
 nine of them ; and its length, when crossing 
 them at right angles, will cover eighteen of 
 those ruffles on Neptune's bosom. I do not 
 overlook the fact that the outer portion of 
 the Toto must be exceedingly stout, as it 
 will have to resist a far greater force from 
 the oncoming waves than a vessel which is 
 lifted by them. The Toto, spreading over 
 quite a number of waves, will not be lifted 
 by any one, but must meet the full force of 
 every coming billow. I admit that in storms 
 the beating force of the waves will be tre- 
 mendous, for they will dash against the rim 
 of the Toto as they dash against the rocky 
 shore of the land : and the rim of the Toto 
 must be very staunch. But it is only the 
 rim which will necessarily be so extremely 
 stout ; for the water, after expending its 
 force there, and being overcome, will smoothly
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 181 
 
 slide along beneath the level bottom of the 
 floating island. That portion of the Toto 
 which comes in contact with the water is so 
 different in form from that of other vessels, 
 that it would hardly be appropriate to call 
 it the hull. A large portion of it is a level 
 bottom ; the remainder inclines upward around 
 the structure, and I call it the rim. That 
 broad, level bottom will be subject to very 
 little strain, the force of the waves being met 
 by that stout rim ; and as it is only the cir- 
 cumference, the rim, which will need to be 
 constructed of immense strength, and as the 
 circumference of an oval figure is less in pro- 
 portion than that of a long and narrow one, 
 and as the strength of the arch inheres in a 
 rim of this oval form, it will be seen that 
 the work of giving the Toto its requisite 
 strength is assisted by three conditions es- 
 pecially favorable to it; so that even that 
 feature of the Toto will not be so extreme
 
 i8 2 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 as might at first appear. And it is only 
 when the waves are running very high that 
 the Toto's immense power of resistance will 
 be tested. When the Toto is moving in 
 the direction of the waves, their action will 
 not retard its progress, but will aid it. 
 
 The rim of the Toto will be built to a 
 sufficient height to prevent the waves from 
 breaking over. This breakwater will preclude 
 the possibility of a horizontal view of the 
 ocean from the pavement of this outer street 
 upon the Toto, or from the doors and win- 
 dows in the first story of these houses; but 
 from the upper stories and from the prome- 
 nade deck (the flat roof) a magnificent view 
 of the ocean will be had at all times, in fair 
 weather or foul ; and on the opposite side 
 of the street will be a shelf-platform running 
 around the edge of the Toto, built within 
 three feet of the top of the rim, as a prome- 
 nade for those who desire to approach the
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 183 
 
 nearest to the ocean, and look over upon it 
 in its majesty, feeling secure from its clutch 
 and interpreting into the language of ro- 
 mance what the wild waves are saying. 
 
 And now some ingenious Yankee may 
 guess that some inquisitive whale would 
 stick his nose up through the bottom of 
 the Toto, to investigate matters above him. 
 The whale would know better. If not, it 
 would simply be an unfortunate attempt, as 
 the would-be housebreaking whale would not 
 succeed in getting anything more substantial 
 than a nosebleed. If any person supposes 
 that a structure of this magnitude and im- 
 portance would be built in so flimsy a man- 
 ner that a big fish would have access where 
 he pleased, let him cherish that shrewd sur- 
 mise and tell it to the marine monsters 
 when the first Toto is ready. Though the 
 Toto will not have much iron in its struc- 
 ture, it will have sufficient to meet every
 
 184 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 demand. Sword-fishes and other marine pests 
 will not find the Toto unprepared to meet 
 them. 
 
 The attempt to obviate seasickness by con- 
 structing a hanging-saloon within a vessel of 
 the ordinary size and shape was as futile as 
 might have been expected. Any person who 
 has observed what motion of the vessel ex- 
 cruciated him the most, has perceived that 
 the rolling and pitching are not the cause 
 of seasickness. The rolling and pitching give 
 a swaying motion to the body, which adds a 
 trifle to the cruciating influence of the real 
 cause of seasickness the upward and down- 
 ward motion ! It is that lifting up, up, up, 
 and that sinking away of the floor, letting 
 us down, down, down, till it begins again to 
 rise, rise, rise. This deranges the stomach in 
 a manner which no hanging-saloon can avert, 
 for the whole ship is moving bodily up and 
 ^down, carrying up and down with it the 
 hanging-saloon.
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 185 
 
 To be sure, a person in a hanging-saloon 
 need not suffer with seasickness, for, if the 
 hanging-saloon is furnished in a style appro- 
 priate to a hanging-saloon, he will have at 
 his disposal the means and the inclination to 
 hang himself. 
 
 There will be no hanging-saloon within 
 the Toto. The whole structure will maintain 
 its level, every head will be level, and no 
 one will even hang his head. Blissful enjoy- 
 ment of the sunny hours, romantic apprecia- 
 tion of the nights beneath that perfect dome 
 of stars feelings of every pleasant kind will 
 dominate us as we journey on the Toto ; and 
 along with every thought will come the sub- 
 lime realization This noble structure is 
 worthy of the ocean ! 
 
 During the year 1873 tne number of im- 
 migrants landing at New York alone was 
 267,000, Their journey was very disagreeable. 
 They were literally pitched over from Europe.
 
 1 86 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 If they could have come smoothly, how 
 much misery would have been saved them. 
 Were there but one such means of con- 
 veyance, they all would gladly have taken 
 it. The many thousands who went to other 
 American ports would have crossed the 
 ocean by this one lovely route. And num- 
 berless thousands of others would have come, 
 for pleasure, or business, or health, or enter- 
 prise, or curiosity, or some one of the various 
 motives which draw the multitude wherever 
 no unpleasant barrier checks them. In the 
 fifteen years ending with 1870, more than 
 three millions of emigrants arrived in the 
 United States. Millions more would have 
 come, undoubtedly, had the "bridge" been 
 ready which would carry them safely and 
 smoothly and easily over. 
 
 The Toto is required. All persons directly 
 or indirectly concerned in the existing lines 
 of ocean steamers will naturally say, " No,"
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 187 
 
 and perhaps extend the word " No " until 
 they utter " Nonsense ! " But the vast ma- 
 jority of people will admit the necessity of 
 at least one worthy carryall for the Atlantic 
 Ocean now, to begin with. 
 
 Against the project of building a Toto, 
 arguments must be expected, on account of 
 that vast pecuniary interest now lodged in the 
 flighty host of vehicles bobbing over the 
 sea. Do not be surprised, therefore, to hear 
 upon every hand the desperate sophistries of 
 those whose anxious souls hover over their 
 marine risks. Patiently hear whatever falla- 
 cies their apprehensions may inspire, sympa- 
 thizing with them in there waning fortunes, 
 kindly soothing them in their distress, drop- 
 ping a tear or two with them in these their 
 last hours, comforting them at the approach 
 of the inevitable. It is sad. But let not 
 their hearts despond; there maybe uses for 
 their narrow little steamers; this country is 
 full of creeks.
 
 1 88 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 What an array of figures they will bring 
 out to prove their side of the case, to belit- 
 tle the importance of the Toto. I anticipate 
 those methods of opposition, and take them 
 by the forelock, disposing of them now. 
 They would surely come. Every great enter- 
 prise is opposed. On the same principle that 
 every man of any account has enemies, 
 every project of any account has opposition. 
 Statistics will be brought out to show how 
 many more people were killed by railroads 
 during one year than were killed by ocean 
 steamers ; as though that, if true, were a valid 
 argument against having a perfectly safe ferry 
 across the Atlantic. The fatality on railroads 
 is one thing, and the fatality from ocean 
 steamers is another thing ; and to compare 
 the two things together, with the purpose of 
 keeping down the better to the level of the 
 worse, is a style of argument they are wel- 
 come to who use it. Were I to reply with
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 189 
 
 similar sophistry, I should retort that the 
 number of persons knocked down and killed 
 by vehicles in the streets of London exceeds 
 the number of people killed by railroads in 
 the whole of England. That is a fact, but 
 what of it ? Is it an argument against im- 
 proved railways, if they could be had ? Or, 
 if I should claim that the number of persons 
 who die of typhoid fever in London exceeds 
 the number run over and killed on the tram- 
 ways, would that be an argument against 
 having good tramways? There is no con- 
 gruity between typhoid fever and tramways, 
 nor between the number of deaths by rail- 
 ways and the number of deaths by ocean 
 steamers. 
 
 Adroitly devised statements will be forth- 
 coming from interested parties, directly or in- 
 directly, in opposition to the Toto. 
 Look out for innuendoes about this time ; 
 look out for their motive. Look out for
 
 1 90 MR. GHIM^S DREAM. 
 
 gross exaggerations. Look out for pleasant 
 caricatures. Look out for a numerous fol- 
 lowing by envious apes with their suddenly 
 conceived figments. Look out for deprecia- 
 tion and opposition of every kind ; but, if 
 you desire an honest man's opinion, take 
 your own when you are next upon the sea. 
 And, even then, look out or you will become 
 a believer in the Toto. 
 
 The greatest physical need of mankind at 
 this time is a Toto. 
 
 So great a project is amazing at the first 
 thought, but what great achievement is not ? 
 The world is progressing, and every import- 
 ant step of its progress is amazing. It is 
 almost incredible that the great inventions 
 which are now in such common use as to 
 be indispensable steam, the printing-press, 
 the telegraph are of such recent origin. The 
 youth of to-day, growing up with the sight 
 of railroads everywhere, would naturally sup-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 191 
 
 pose that railroads had been in vogue for 
 ages. What more amazing to him than to be 
 told that about fifty years ago there was not a 
 railroad on earth ; that the telegraph was not 
 used until long afterward ; that they were 
 both bitterly denounced by the majority of 
 people living when they were introduced ; 
 that in 1814 Great Britain had only two 
 steam vessels, and now she has nearly four 
 thousand ; that an able and prominent mem- 
 ber of the British Association declared before 
 that body only forty-five years ago that no 
 steam vessel could ever cross the Atlantic; 
 that another prominent Englishman averred 
 that the electric telegraph was impossible, and 
 would not be wanted by the people even if it 
 were possible ; that the four million sewing- 
 machines in the United States had their origin 
 as lately as 1853; that 200,000 patents have 
 been granted in this new country, and they 
 are increasing at the rate of nearly 300 a
 
 192 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 week; that the round earth was universally 
 admitted to be flat until within two or three 
 hundred years ; that there are fogies upon it 
 now who keep it as flat as they can ; that 
 there could be any hesitation in building a 
 Toto! 
 
 Look back about fifty years, and see how 
 the pull-backs tugged to prevent the railway 
 system from starting and moving on. For- 
 tunately, the breeching broke, and then they 
 had to clear the track ! for the locomotive 
 was getting ahead of them ! I extract the 
 following from an editorial in that most useful 
 and sterling journal of modern times, the 
 Scientific American, of the date Oct. 30, 
 
 1875 : 
 "On the 2;th of September, 1825, the first 
 
 railroad for conveying passengers was opened 
 in England, between the towns of Darlington 
 and Stockton. The occasion brought together 
 a throng of witnesses, some doubtful, more
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 193 
 
 scornful, and all perhaps better prepared to 
 scoff at the failure which it was confidently 
 predicted awaited the bold inventor in his 
 daring attempt to make vehicles travel at the 
 unprecedented rate of fifteen miles an hour, 
 than to congratulate him upon the triumph 
 which upset their theories and left them 
 questioning the reliability of their senses. It 
 is suggestive to contrast this unbelieving as- 
 semblage with the gigantic gathering which 
 has enthusiastically celebrated the day which 
 marks the lapse of the half century since that 
 victory over prejudice and ignorance was 
 gained. * * * * The question of nui- 
 sance became the ground for many of the 
 most absurd objections to Stephenson's pro- 
 posed use of the locomotive for passenger 
 transportation. ' The noise of the machine 
 will scare cows so badly that their lacteal 
 functions will be arrested;' 'if cows get on
 
 194 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 the track, how will the engine get out of 
 the way ? ' are specimens of this cavilling." 
 
 Only fifty-two years since then ! The rail- 
 road now is common, and its entire structure 
 is immense. Other vast enterprises also have 
 grown up, stunning at the outset, but shortly 
 becoming essential elements of civilization. 
 Another stunning step in human progress is 
 to come. Let it be such a firm step on the 
 ocean that the very whales will forget the 
 story of Jonah in their wonder. Yet one of 
 the commonest things in future years will be 
 the Toto. 
 
 It has been well said 
 
 " The folly of one age is the wisdom of 
 the next." The New Age. 
 
 The dark ages were not very remote, ac- 
 cording to the following, from the Herald 
 of the Hub, of the date Oct. 31, 1875 : 
 
 " About seventy years ago the gas lamp 
 was introduced in London, by a German
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 195 
 
 named Winsor, and soon afterward the citizens 
 lighted Bishopsgate street as an experiment. 
 Terrible consequences from this innovation 
 were predicted by non-progressive alarmists, 
 and these antiquated scarecrows spread the 
 notion that the extensive use of gas in Lon- 
 don would poison the air, and eventually 
 blow up the inhabitants." 
 
 But the opposers of gas received more 
 light. There is now plenty of gas in Lon- 
 don and Washington and elsewhere. Yet 
 there is not a reliable ship on the globe. 
 
 There will be. 
 
 Adorn the Toto little or much, it will be 
 lovely. Build the first Toto unadorned, yet 
 it will be adorned the most among all the 
 floating palaces of the sea, for it will adorn 
 itself with a multitude of happy human faces. 
 No other kind of adornment equals that! 
 And that kind of adornment is not the pre- 
 vailing feature of rolling ships.
 
 196 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Embellish the Toto first or last, the peoples 
 of the earth will enjoy it always. Many will 
 come from many lands, attracted by its funda- 
 mental worth, ornamented or plain. What- 
 ever the decoration, the one inherent charm of 
 the Toto will be its masculine strength, its 
 power to resist the turbulence of that un- 
 scrupulous, noisy Neptune. 
 
 Garnish the Toto in due time. Please the 
 eye, but come to terms with the stomach first. 
 The most fastidious eye is naught so long as 
 the most dainty stomach is squeamish. Away 
 with glitter until there is substance ! Paint 
 nothing until there is something worth paint- 
 ing ! It is better to be well on a dray than 
 ill in a landaulet. 
 
 The suffering of the past is crying out unto 
 us who are living and moulding the future. 
 Borne on every breeze around the earth still 
 sweeps the groan of every human being who 
 has sunk into the ocean depths. Their cries
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 197 
 
 are growing feebler, but the sad vibrations 
 linger yet, and will roll on forever. Each im- 
 pulsion of despair, so loudly rung out, is be- 
 coming fainter every year; yet they are grow- 
 ing greater in their number every year. 
 Thousands of the saddest wailings have been 
 newly added to the cry of drowning thou- 
 sands lost in each year gone ; and thousands 
 more, of hearts that now are glowing with 
 the light of hope, are doomed within a year 
 to add their piteous entreaties to the com- 
 mon shriek, and keep it rolling on. And so 
 it will continue, until mankind shall send a 
 worthy answer to the sea, the formidable 
 might of Neptune shall be nobly met, and 
 on the cruel waters of an ocean maddening 
 up into destructive fury shall calmly and 
 triumphantly and grandly float a safe and 
 comfortable vehicle the Toto.
 
 198 MR. GHIM >S DREAM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HE foregoing chapter comprises the 
 gist of my argument to Mr. Vander- 
 bilt and others, in regard to the huge 
 enterprise I projected. 
 
 And now we shall see what came of it. 
 
 The building of a Toto began. 
 
 John Roach, the celebrated ship-builder, 
 
 superintended the construction of the first 
 
 Toto. Vanderbilt raised the money, Roach 
 
 furnished the mechanical ability, I concocted 
 
 the idea. We three produced the first Toto. 
 
 Roach was the hardest worked man of the 
 
 trio. All the responsibility rested on him 
 
 from the moment he commenced to build the
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 199 
 
 Toto. Happily, John Roach was born with 
 a head equal to the task, though it had to 
 apply itself to a work entirely original. For- 
 tunately, too, he had a chip of the old block 
 with him Henry Roach who proved an 
 able assistant. 
 
 A vast deal of thinking had to be done 
 before the specifications of the huge struc- 
 ture could be determined upon in all their 
 details ; but this was accomplished while the 
 framework was undergoing construction ; and 
 thus the great enterprise went forward with- 
 out delay. Time was precious ; so many were 
 suffering for want of employment. 
 
 The forthcoming grand embodiment of hu- 
 man progress began to take form within a 
 few weeks from the time Mr. Roach took 
 hold of the enterprise. The actual outline 
 of the structure was soon visible, and all its 
 parts were seen to be coming together and 
 uniting in unmistakable reality. In just five
 
 200 MR. GffSM'S DREAM. 
 
 years from its inception the monster was 
 ready for the sea. 
 
 In the meantime, the enormous amount of 
 employment it created gave a stirring impulse 
 to mercantile transactions, revived industry in 
 all its branches, quickened the circulation of 
 money, accelerated the flow of good nature, 
 restored the confidence needed among busi- 
 ness men, and drove dull times away. Pros- 
 perity was restored. Progress was resumed. 
 Activity reigned. 
 
 As the time approached for that most 
 signal proceeding of this century, the launch 
 of the first Toto, preparations were made to 
 celebrate the event in a manner befitting its 
 magnitude, with a ceremony appropriate to 
 the grandeur of the deed itself and the sub- 
 limity of its meaning. 
 
 Countless organizations pressed their claims 
 for the right of the line in the great civic 
 procession which marched from Central Park
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 201 
 
 to the Battery, lest they should be behind, 
 unable to get within a mile of the Toto. An 
 avalanche of letters poured into Vanderbilt's 
 office for weeks beforehand, urgently solicit- 
 ing passes within the charmed circle around 
 the tower, reserved for the nearest spectators 
 of the ceremony. 
 
 As the inauguration of the first Toto was 
 an event entirely new in the history of the 
 world, it was fitting that the management of 
 the long procession on that day should in- 
 volve a new feature. Instead of one chief 
 marshal, we had two. I induced the most 
 famous general of the war to command it first, 
 and another noted general to command it last. 
 One marshalled the vast host of organizations 
 together, and led them forward ; the other 
 conducted them back in good order. Thus 
 promptness was secured, and discipline main- 
 tained. The members of every company were 
 notified beforehand precisely where and ex-
 
 202 MR. GfffM'S DREAM. 
 
 actly when to rendezvous, to march immedi- 
 ately. Each organization fell into line with 
 the precision of clock-work, moving without a 
 moment's stoppage of any one of the numer- 
 ous parts. I believed such accuracy attainable, 
 and I determined to have it. I selected the 
 men who could carry out this idea, and they 
 managed the vast array of organizations with 
 the foresight required. Grant led them forth, 
 and McClellan led them back. 
 
 The passage of the long procession to the 
 Toto, the crowding upon it of as many as 
 could find a foothold, was followed by the 
 dedicatory exercises, in the open air, on the 
 widest thoroughfare of the Toto, where a small 
 platform had been erected for a few of the 
 most prominent actors in the scene. 
 
 I had thought it might add something to 
 the pleasure of the time to have the Toto 
 dedicated by Free Masons. They are always 
 willing to entertain the people by dedicating.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 203 
 
 I love to see them march up on a platform 
 in front of us common people, and dedicate 
 public buildings, soldiers' monuments, &c., 
 according to their ritual, without betraying 
 the important secrets of their order. Not 
 being a Free Mason myself, I consulted a 
 Sir Knight, who referred me to an Eminent 
 Commander, who sent me to a Right Emi- 
 nent Grand Commander, who directed me to 
 the Grand Generalissimo of the United 
 States : and through his influence I had all 
 the Free Masons of the United States pres- 
 ent to dedicate my Toto. This portion of 
 the ceremony was opened by the Grand 
 Master of the Commandery of New York, 
 as follows : 
 
 GRAND MASTER. From time immemorial 
 it has been the custom of the Ancient and 
 Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted 
 Masons, when requested to do so, to conse- 
 crate, with ancient forms, such public works
 
 204 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 as are of patriotic and common interest. 
 This structure, therefore, we may consecrate 
 in accordance with our law, and in accord- 
 ance with ancient usage. Brother Deputy 
 Grand Master, what is the proper jewel of 
 your office? 
 
 DEPUTY GRAND MASTER. The square. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. What does it teach? 
 
 + 
 
 DEPUTY GRAND MASTER. To square our 
 accounts by the square of virtue, and by it 
 we prove our work. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. Have you applied your 
 jewel to this structure? 
 
 DEPUTY GRAND MASTER. I have. The 
 work is square. The craftsmen have done 
 their duty. 
 
 [It seemed to me more round than square. 
 Still, I kept quiet. I did not wish to accuse 
 a Deputy Grand Master of falsehood.] 
 
 GRAND MASTER. Brother Senior Grand 
 Warden, what is the jewel of your office ?
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 205 
 
 SENIOR GRAND WARDEN. The level. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. What does it teach ? 
 
 SENIOR GRAND WARDEN. The equality of 
 all men ; and by it we prove our work. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. Have you applied your 
 jewel to this structure? 
 
 SENIOR GRAND WARDEN. I have. The 
 work is level. The craftsmen have done 
 their duty. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. Brother Junior Grand 
 Warden, what is the jewel of your office? 
 
 JUNIOR GRAND WARDEN. The plumb. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. What does it teach? 
 
 JUNIOR GRAND WARDEN. To walk up- 
 rightly; and by it we prove our work. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. Have you applied your 
 jewel to this structure? 
 
 JUNIOR GRAND WARDEN. I have. The 
 work is plumb. The craftsmen have done 
 their duty. 
 
 ["Plumb, is it?" thought I. "The Toto is
 
 206 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 level, but who would think of saying it is 
 plumb?"] 
 
 The Grand Master, striking the Toto three 
 times with the gavel, said : 
 
 Well made well proved true and trusty. 
 This undertaking has been conducted and 
 completed by the craftsmen according to the 
 grand plan, in Peace, Harmony and Brotherly 
 Love. 
 
 The Deputy Grand Master received from 
 the Grand Marshal a vessel of corn, and, 
 pouring out the corn, said : 
 
 May the health of the community which 
 has executed this undertaking be preserved, 
 and their labors be prospered. 
 
 The Grand Marshal presented a cup of wine 
 to the Senior Grand Warden, who poured the 
 wine down his throat, saying : 
 
 May plenty be vouchsafed to the people of 
 this city, and blessings attend all its great un- 
 dertakings.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 207 
 
 The Grand Marshal presented a cup of oil 
 to the Junior Grand Warden, who poured the 
 oil (not down his throat, but into a lamp, for 
 it was kerosene oil), saying : 
 
 May this people be preserved in peace, and 
 enjoy every blessing. 
 
 The Grand Chaplain then pronounced the 
 following invocation : 
 
 May corn, wine, and kerosene oil, and all 
 the necessaries of life, abound among men 
 throughout the world ; and may this structure 
 long remain in its grandeur and strength, to 
 traverse the ocean securely; to which noble 
 and useful purpose it has now been con- 
 secrated. 
 
 GRAND MASTER. Grand Marshal, you will 
 make proclamation that this structure has 
 been duly consecrated in accordance with an- 
 cient form and usage. 
 
 GRAND MARSHAL. In the name of the 
 Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of the Com-
 
 zoS MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 monwealth of New York, I now proclaim that 
 the structure here built by the most enterpris- 
 ing men now living, for the purpose of carry- 
 ing people safely and comfortably across the 
 ocean, has this day been found square, level, 
 and plumb, true and trusty, and consecrated 
 according to the ancient forms of Masons. 
 This Proclamation is made from the EAST, the 
 WEST, the SOUTH ONCE (trumpet), TWICE 
 (trumpet twice), THRICE (trumpet thrice). 
 All interested will take due notice thereof. 
 
 The Masonic feature of the dedication of 
 the Toto reminded me of a similar ceremony 
 at the dedication of the Soldiers' Monument 
 on Boston Common, Sept. 17, 1877, and my 
 impression at the time that probably no more 
 grand and imposing public proceeding than 
 this serious pouring of corn and wine and oil 
 was occurring on any portion of the earth 
 except among the savages. Moreover, that 
 calling a round monument square was only
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 209 
 
 exceeded by calling it level. Centuries of 
 corroding time may level it ; at present it is 
 plumb. My aim is always practical utility, 
 and had I been the Grand Master of masonic 
 ceremonies on that occasion, I should have 
 directed my men in regalia to examine that 
 staging full of seats on Black stone Square 
 before it fell with all those people on it, thus 
 saving five broken legs and several broken 
 ribs. There was where the square, and the 
 plumb, and so forth were needed, to see if the 
 craftsmen had done their duty, before so many 
 people were injured by the structure suddenly 
 becoming level. Possibly the builders had 
 been pouring too much corn, or too much oil, 
 but probably too much wine. 
 
 At the dedication of the Toto, after the 
 Free Masons had played their part, a gun was 
 fired and the American Hymn was sung by 
 a million voices in the open air ; a few words 
 were spoken by the originator of the Toto;
 
 2io MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 a selected chorus sang a poem written for the 
 occasion by James Russell Lowell ; Vanderbilt 
 bowed his acknowledgments to the eulogy it 
 contained ; Roach delivered a short address on 
 the history of shipbuilding, and especially its 
 progress since the building of the steamer Hu- 
 ron; a solo was attempted and sung by the 
 broken voice of the venerable Jenny Lind, in 
 honor of the old memories clinging to this 
 spot ; and the next thing on the programme 
 was an oration by Senator Roscoe Conkling, 
 who delivered the most eloquent address which 
 his powerful mind was ever inspired to create. 
 In his own superb style, he declared the past 
 five years, from 1877 to 1882, the most mem- 
 orable five years conceivable in American 
 history. And he uttered much besides, in 
 every one of those solid sentences of his. 
 
 " You, sir," said he, turning to Ex-President 
 Hayes upon his left, " and you, sir," gracefully 
 swinging to President Bristow on his right,
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 2 n 
 
 " had the honor to stand at the helm of this 
 mighty creation of human foresight in govern- 
 ment, called a Republic, when this other 
 mighty creation of human foresight, called a 
 Toto, had its amazing inception and its glori- 
 ous consummation. The deed we perform 
 this day will be known in the remotest future 
 of the human race, when all the brilliant 
 achievements hitherto won shall have van- 
 ished from the memory of man, to perish 
 utterly. The names of the men who engaged 
 in this noble enterprise will quiver on human 
 lips a million years to come, as they break 
 through their emotion to speak of this one 
 huge stride in the march of Progress." 
 
 I have given but the weakest paragraph in 
 his powerful address. The whole occupied an 
 hour, and was poured into the ears of the 
 most remarkable assemblage ever formed. 
 Not only the wise, profound, witty and 
 famous of this land, but celebrities of all
 
 212 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 lands, were numerously gathered here, to wit- 
 ness the inauguration of so stupendous a 
 movement as the movement of the Toto. 
 Crowned heads from Europe were bumping 
 each other in the dense throng. 
 
 At the conclusion of Senator Conkling's 
 address, the stars and stripes ran up the 
 Toto's flagstaff over the tower, the Star 
 Spangled Banner was sung by square miles 
 of people on housetops stretching up Man- 
 hattan Island, the procession marched away, 
 the ponderous engines were put in motion, 
 and the launch of the first Toto began. He 
 floated out with the ease and grace of a swan, 
 and glided toward the outer bay, to the music 
 of countless bands afloat and ashore. 
 
 Such was the confidence beforehand in the 
 structure, every detail in its furnishing was 
 completed before the Toto was launched, and 
 now it was out and bound for England direct. 
 The broad escutcheon upon its stern, bearing
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 213 
 
 its proud name of PROGRESS, was now re- 
 vealed to the gaze of millions behind, who 
 crowded the housetops of New York and 
 Brooklyn, on platforms erected up there, and 
 loaded the roofs as they had never been 
 laden before. Jersey City, too, was densely 
 occupied with watchers, and every visible spot 
 of earth in the region around was covered 
 with human beings intensely interested in the 
 sublime event, and clambering up from be- 
 hind every obstacle, to peer through the in- 
 tervening space and view the wondrous 
 scene. The most near-sighted persons, though 
 miles away, could see something without an 
 opera-glass. 
 
 The coffer-dam had been removed pre- 
 viously ; this work required many days. For 
 weeks the Toto had been afloat, waiting for the 
 ceremonious public launch from its quiet little 
 resting-place to the boisterous surface of the
 
 2i 4 MR. CHIMES DREAM. 
 
 broad ocean. The i/th of September, 1882, 
 was the day thus honored. 
 
 Months before the Toto was launched, 
 every habitation upon it, every room, cot, 
 and lounge, had been engaged at a high pre- 
 mium for occupancy during its first passage 
 across the Atlantic ; and yet but a small 
 fraction of the multitude eager to enjoy this 
 splendid novelty could be accommodated. 
 These fortunate ones, numbering a hundred 
 thousand, were now experiencing the most 
 novel hour of their lives, and were accord- 
 ingly full of the delight which novelty brings. 
 There was ceaseless, jaunty traversing to and 
 fro upon the Toto, exploring its upper and 
 lower regions for every point of interest, a 
 smile of satisfaction adorning every counte- 
 nance, the laughter of overflowing good na- 
 ture echoing interminably. Life, life, rollick- 
 ing life, the highest exhilaration of life, 
 abounded. The stupendous structure itself
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 215 
 
 was alive with its forward motion, and the 
 stir of its hundred thousand occupants ren- 
 dered it seemingly more alive with the molec- 
 ular motion of its parts. 
 
 Onward to the Narrows the leviathan was 
 steadily conveying us at the rate of six miles 
 an hour. 
 
 We passed to the lower bay, and followed 
 the channel around near Sandy Hook, out to 
 the open sea. And now the special interest 
 in the Toto as a sea-going vessel deepened 
 and broadened, and was rising to its climax. 
 The Toto was soon to meet the supreme 
 test. Here were the mighty waves of the 
 Atlantic rolling their huge volumes toward 
 us. Eternally-moving swaths of water, from 
 twenty to forty feet high, were to lose their 
 momentum in surging against our stately 
 craft. Not merely one of these contentious 
 agents of Neptune must be subdued, but 
 another, another, and another continually,
 
 2i6 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 whenever the waves were moving in oppo- 
 sition to our course. We glided on toward 
 the heavily-rolling surface of the ocean, reach- 
 ing it gradually over the lesser billows, and 
 watched with the keenest sense the powerful 
 efforts made by the element which the Toto 
 was built especially to combat. 
 
 Night had fallen around us. The smallest 
 hours of the night were passing when this 
 trial of strength between two monsters oc- 
 curred. It was after midnight but who had 
 retired to bed? Not a soul of the hundred 
 thousand aboard. The full round moon had 
 rolled up and shone down from its topmost 
 height, giving to our little city its brightest 
 illumination of the night, and was rolling on 
 its downward track. 
 
 On board the Toto, enthusiasm had kept 
 every person awake and alert ; and on the 
 land behind us, was any living person asleep ? 
 The miles on miles of the shore of Long
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 217 
 
 Island while it remained in sight, and the 
 square miles of ground behind the shore were 
 white with square miles of human faces di- 
 rected toward us, imparting to that moonlight 
 scene a grandeur of picturesqueness that can 
 never die in the memory of those who beheld 
 it. We were a hundred thousand, they were 
 millions. The sight they saw was grand, the 
 sight we saw was sublime. 
 
 Breaking away our gaze from that vast 
 splendor behind us, we peered before us, upon 
 the heavy and heavier swell of the ocean we 
 were to meet and baffle. The waves were not 
 running mountains high : they never do ; but 
 they were running hillocks high, and further 
 out they were running at their highest. A 
 lengthy storm had been rousing the great 
 deep for days, and had only ceased on the 
 morning of the day we started, leaving the 
 ocean ruffled by those tremendous undula- 
 tions, with crowns of forty feet vertical height
 
 2i8 MR. GHIM S DREAM. 
 
 from the trough of the sea, rolling now with 
 an impetuosity requiring several days of mod- 
 erate weather to bring down to the average. 
 No more fortunate start could have happened, 
 for it enabled us to witness thus early in the 
 first trip ever made by the Toto a full test of 
 its usefulness. And, moreover, without the un- 
 pleasant feature of a storm keeping us indoors. 
 We could occupy our streets and house-tops, 
 and traverse the Toto conveniently to every 
 part. We did. All night long the promenad- 
 ing continued, with scarcely any abatement. 
 The superb novelty of this great night's expe- 
 rience made peripatetics of us all. But while 
 the itinerant multitude trod those streets with 
 careless step and thoughtless mood, a few 
 were closely studying the great problem which 
 the Toto was aiding them now to solve. Men 
 who had risked millions in this new system of 
 ocean navigation were intensely absorbed in 
 the prospect. And I, who did not own one
 
 MR. GHIMS DREAM. 
 
 219 
 
 share, not having a million dollars to purchase 
 it, was more deeply interested than all, as I 
 had originated the project which jeopardized 
 these hundred thousand persons' lives. 
 
 Now in the pilot-house, now at the extreme 
 front edge, now looking down over the stern, 
 now somewhere else, I was everywhere, dili- 
 gently observing ; but as time passed on, and 
 we were nearing the heaviest waves we were 
 to encounter, I betook myself to the extremest 
 position forward, where the billows, if they 
 were to sweep us away, should fold me first 
 in their deadly embrace. From a similar im- 
 pulse, Roach, the builder, wended his way to 
 the same fascinating spot ; and Vanderbilt, 
 the chief owner, joined us. Other celebrities, 
 also, tarried here a while, and then continued 
 their meanderings. Bayard Taylor, the travel- 
 ler, of course, travelled to this spot, and so- 
 journed half an hour. His friend, the witty 
 paragrapher, the Danbury News man, had a
 
 320 MR. GffSM'S DREAM. 
 
 curiosity . to gratify here. George Alfred 
 Townsend rushed here repeatedly. The ven- 
 erable Peter Cooper, George Law, the brothers 
 Stuart, both the Roosevelts, all the Adamses, 
 and others, happened along. 
 
 Senator Conkling, arm in arm with George 
 William Curtis, paced from the Kernan Hotel, 
 to enjoy a sight of the ocean from this vantage 
 point when the sea was running high, and 
 looked down fraternally on the tumultuous 
 waters, which were heaving and contending 
 and uniting like angry statesmen. 
 
 These two prominent creators of public 
 opinion had latterly vied with each other only 
 in their endeavors to be foremost in thunder- 
 ing the praises of the magnificent useful enter- 
 prise just completed. As they approached our 
 little group they were considering the subject 
 of ambition. 
 
 " I have often marvelled," said Senator 
 Conkling, "that you, my dear George, have
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 221 
 
 i 
 
 always shunned the road leading to Senatorial 
 honors." 
 
 George William Curtis, with a smile as deep 
 as eternity, replied that he considered the 
 scope for exalted influence afforded a journal- 
 ist was as much greater and loftier than that 
 wielded by a Senator as the flight of a power- 
 ful eagle is greater and loftier than that of a 
 crow. 
 
 " But nothing personal is meant, my dear 
 Roscoe," he added, dimpling. 
 
 " I perceive an additional reason," said 
 Conkling. " I notice that the highest am- 
 bition invariably defeats itself. It is a curi- 
 ous fact worth noticing, that every President 
 in modern times, from the election of Lincoln 
 till now, has been the very man who cared 
 the least to become President. The hardest 
 strivers for the place were always baffled, an 
 humbler man taken up and lifted to the 
 Executive Chair. Ambition is a tumor. I
 
 222 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 have had mine cut off. I am now the most 
 contented public man on the globe." 
 
 "Therefore, my dear Conkling, you are 
 the most likely to reach the Presidency 
 next." 
 
 " I no longer care for the Presidency. I 
 shall not go one step toward it." 
 
 " The more surely it will come to you." 
 
 Other Senators and other public men and 
 gifted ladies, passing along, stopped and staid 
 a while. 
 
 The waves ran higher, but the Toto main- 
 tained its speed of six miles an hour. We 
 who were gathered upon its forward edge 
 looked over at times for a vertical view of 
 the ocean. Standing on the shelf-platform 
 which extended around inside, three feet 
 below the top of the rim of the Toto, we 
 could not look down vertically to the ocean, 
 as the rim was four feet thick. But stand- 
 ing upon the rim itself, which had a light
 
 MR. GJTIM'S DREAM. 223 
 
 but firm railing flush with its outer edge, we 
 could bend over and peer straight down on 
 the rising and falling surface of the mighty 
 waters. It was a sight of which I never 
 tired. Were the Toto itself rising and fall- 
 ing with the water, like all other vessels, no 
 such scene would have met our gaze. The 
 Toto was still maintaining its steady poise, 
 though advancing in a region of gigantic bil- 
 lows. Mightier yet were to be reached, and 
 we who were most interested remained at this 
 point to witness the effect of Neptune's 
 fiercest hostility. 
 
 Some persons had imagined that the Toto 
 would experience a jarring pulsation through 
 it at every encounter with a wave. This 
 would be a constant source of annoyance 
 throughout the Toto. Theoretically, this 
 might happen ; practically, it did not. The 
 rim being oval, and nowhere straight, there 
 was no heavy broadside shock to thrill
 
 224 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 
 
 through the structure. Each great wave 
 touched the curved outline at one point first, 
 and all other points afterward. Thus every 
 encounter was gradual. At all times there 
 were several billows rolling past the Toto. 
 Its steadiness was perfect. And its speed 
 exceeded our anticipations. But as we looked 
 down vertically from its forward edge, and 
 saw the water rising every minute as an ob- 
 stacle to its speed, we also saw it falling 
 every minute, removing an obstacle ; falling 
 away down to as great a depth below the 
 average level as it had risen above it, thus 
 compensating for its enormous rise a moment 
 before. 
 
 It was a curious sight we saw, looking 
 down when a wave had lowered the surface 
 of the water beneath us, away down to a 
 depth of forty feet below where it had been, 
 to see that the Toto did not descend along 
 with it, but seemed to hang out over that
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 225 
 
 abysm, as though pushing across it. The 
 body of the structure extending far back, 
 over the width of eighteen of these broad 
 billows, held it up in its level attitude, what- 
 ever might be the height or depth of a wave 
 at any point around it. 
 
 But we were meeting greater and greater 
 waves, and we awaited the result of the on- 
 set. If one should sweep over us ! 
 
 My confidence, however, was strong. In 
 any event, I felt no apprehension regarding 
 my own life. If the Toto were swamped, I, 
 having brought it into existence, would not 
 care to survive the misfortune, even if escape 
 to land were possible. I felt as complacent as 
 could be. 
 
 "A smile is passing over the face of our 
 transcendent young genius," remarked Senator 
 Conkling, with a touch of sarcasm in the re- 
 mark. " What is it, Ghim ? What facetious 
 idea has come ?"
 
 22 6 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 " A droll notion, Senator, which you your- 
 self threw out at the Rochester Convention in 
 1877. An ingenuous lady once said she had 
 always noticed that when she lived through 
 February she lived through the whole year. 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! And now, if the Toto lives 
 through the waves we are shortly to meet, 
 he will live on through all." 
 
 "I hope he will," remarked the Senator, 
 taking out his pocket-knife and cleaning his 
 finger-nails by moonlight. 
 
 " Another smile has reached the phiz of our 
 Ghim. What is it all about?" queried the 
 Danbury News man, at whom I happened to 
 be looking. 
 
 " A reminiscence of your own," said I. " I 
 learned from the columns of your highly in- 
 fluential and useful journal (ahem !) about 
 a case where a train of cars ran off the track 
 and were smashed to pieces, when a fat old 
 lady who had never travelled on a railroad be-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 227 
 
 fore, and was bound for Stamford, crawled out 
 of the wreck and inquired ' Is this Stamford ?' 
 ' No, this is a catastrophe,' was the reply. 
 ' Well, if this ain't Stamford, I hadn't oughter 
 got off here,' So now, if we meet waves too 
 big, there will be a catastrophe, and there 
 will be a hundred thousand of us folks, who 
 never travelled this way before, wriggling 
 about in the water, thinking we ' hadn't 
 oughter got off here.' " 
 
 The moon was descending, the waves were 
 rising. But at 3 o'clock the climax of the 
 situation was reached. Captain Garrett, who 
 commanded the vessel, came down from the 
 pilot-house and informed us that the Toto 
 was traversing the highest waves it would 
 ever encounter. Its test as a sea-going ves- 
 sel had now been fully and successfully met ! 
 
 Captain Garrett hastened back to the top 
 of the tower, and blew five screeches from 
 the whistle. A great event was now to
 
 228 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 occur, in honor of the Toto's complete 
 success. 
 
 The tower was built upon arches over the 
 central thoroughfare, which bore the name of 
 Indiana Avenue. Fronting on one side of 
 Indiana Avenue was the Voorhees Hotel, 
 by far the largest in the city. The Voorhees 
 Hotel was long and narrow; one end was 
 painted yellowish red. This hotel extended 
 the entire length of the Toto, minus the 
 width of the street at each end. All the cross 
 streets were spanned by the building itself, 
 just above the first story. The second story, 
 in front, comprised one long dining-room, 
 seventeen hundred feet in length, and thirty 
 feet in width. In this immense dining-room 
 was now to be held the greatest banquet the 
 world had ever witnessed or ever dreamed of. 
 The invitations were issued a year before 
 hand; the moment had come, the whistle 
 announced it ; and now the greatest of earth
 
 MR. GHIJ^S DREAM. 229 
 
 from inventors down to monarchs, were gath- 
 ering in response to the signal which told 
 them the time had arrived for rejoicing and 
 feasting and speech-making over the triumph- 
 ant career of the Toto. Such a banquet earlier 
 would have signified nothing. Not until the 
 new structure had met its enemy in the full 
 tide of his strength, and successfully passed 
 the terrific ordeal, could that mighty fact 
 be appropriately celebrated. Now we could 
 do it, and with a gusto. Hunger was begin- 
 ning in earnest to press its claims. Many of 
 us had eaten nothing, cared for nothing to 
 eat, in the heightening excitement of all the 
 hours since we started. But now the climax 
 had come, and henceforth the intense novelty 
 of it all must wane. 
 
 Preparations for the banquet had been com- 
 pleted in all their details. The arrangements 
 had been specified to each invited guest weeks 
 before. Every one knew precisely the spot to
 
 2 3 o MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 go to, the chair to occupy, in the whole vast 
 array. At the welcome sound of the steam- 
 whistle, thirty-six hundred persons moved with 
 joyful steps toward the Voorhees Hotel. All 
 sat down together in one room, and ate their 
 fill. 
 
 It was a notable assembly, embracing the 
 leading inventors of all nations, the greatest 
 authors of every tongue, the most famous 
 statesmen of the world, brilliant American 
 sovereigns, and every royal head on the globe. 
 Regarding the latter, all, all had been drawn 
 by the magic of this mighty revolution in 
 commercial affairs. In the speech-making 
 which attended this banquet, their royal high- 
 nesses let out the secret of their unanimous 
 attendance here ; America was bearing away 
 the palm for enterprise; no head of a mari- 
 time nation could tranquilly rest upon its 
 pillow at home during such an august hour as 
 this ; all were here to observe with their own
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 231 
 
 eyes, and to plan the immediate construction 
 of Totos in their own waters. 
 
 The ruler of Japan, even the ruler of China, 
 sat down at this board. The enterprising 
 Dom Pedro, of Brazil, would not have missed 
 the occasion for half his kingdom. Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson emerged from retirement, and 
 enjoyed this stirring event at the Voorhees 
 Hotel. The " tall Sycamore of the Wabash " 
 of course, graced the occasion with his flowing 
 locks and flowing accents. 
 
 Ben Butler and Ben Hill took seats near 
 each other, with only the Queen of England 
 between. 
 
 The Sultan of Turkey sat near the Czar 
 of Russia, with Her Majesty Queen Isabella 
 for meat to the great sandwich. 
 
 The beetling brow of Mark Twain threw 
 more colossal majesty on the scene, and his 
 long-drawn tones lengthened the humorous 
 feeling his droll ideas aroused.
 
 232 MR. GJflM'S DREAM. 
 
 The merry little old doctor, Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, took out a manuscript when called 
 up, and read a chirruping poem. With his 
 usual felicitousness of expression, he touched 
 upon various persons present. The greatest 
 roach he had ever come across while eating 
 was John Roach, the builder of the Toto. 
 The man of progress who had put himself 
 furthest in the van was Vanderbilt. The fact 
 that the Toto existed, and was not a mere 
 whim, was due to one here who persisted, 
 which his name it was Ghim. 
 
 The rollicking little round Sunset Cox 
 climbed up into a chair betwixt Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe and Clara Louise Kellogg, 
 and set tables roaring by his youthful exu- 
 berance. 
 
 The gifted Mary Clemmer, directly oppo- 
 site, snugly ensconced between Max Stra- 
 kosch and the Khedive of Egypt, exulted in 
 her superb opportunity for studying human
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 233 
 
 nature. Not a face within range escaped her 
 keen scrutiny. 
 
 The Princess of Wales, with Whitelaw Reid 
 on one side, and Bret Harte on the other, 
 enjoyed the occasion royally. 
 
 The talented Olivia, and the queenly Olive 
 Logan, and the ferocious General Logan, and 
 the vigorous Clarence Cook, and the mother 
 of us all, Mrs. Livermore, were mingled with 
 the kingly Grand Duke of Russia, the ardent 
 Gambetta, the smooth Disraeli, the earnest 
 Grace Greenwood, and the bewitching Phoebe 
 Cozzens. 
 
 The Empress Eugenie was sometimes smil- 
 ing in a Frenchy chat with the Hon. Matt 
 Carpenter upon her right, and sometimes se- 
 riously listening to the King of Dahomey 
 upon her left. 
 
 Cyrus W. Field and Kate Field and 
 James T. Fields, and various Fields, were 
 present.
 
 234 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Far too numerous to mention were the 
 many others who attended this banquet. 
 
 The decoration of the room was gorgeous. 
 The arrangement of tables was transverse, 
 except at the ends of the room, where a few 
 tables ran lengthwise, to afford every person 
 the best opportunity attainable for seeing 
 many. But as no one could see all, or hear 
 everything, imaginary lines divided the whole 
 into three groups of twelve hundred persons 
 each, except when some stentorian voice 
 gained the ears of the whole assembly. 
 
 An incident occurred in "our set," of small 
 importance to the multitude, but of tremen- 
 dous importance to me. Ik Marvel, deliver- 
 ing a little speech in eloquent Saxon, 
 complimenting me, alluded to the Toto as 
 my Toto. Replying, I mentioned the fact 
 that not a single iron rod or creosoted stick 
 of timber, or even a ten-penny nail in the 
 whole structure belonged to me ; that the
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 235 
 
 shares were a million dollars each, and I did 
 not own a share. 
 
 Vanderbilt suddenly arose. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," said he, " our 
 young friend's remarks move me to say a 
 few words right here, and perform a deed 
 right here which I planned for a future 
 occasion when I could see him alone. 
 I am too impatient now to await that time. 
 You are all aware that I own fifty-one of 
 the hundred shares representing the value of 
 the Toto, while he who virtually created this 
 entire structure owns nothing of it, alas ! and 
 is poorer than the poorest of you. I now 
 present to him, as a trifling reward for his 
 thoughtful services in behalf of suffering hu- 
 manity, by conceiving and carrying forward so 
 gigantic an enterprise as the building of the 
 first Toto, a million dollars' worth of its stock." 
 
 As soon as I could be heard I replied, 
 protesting against such a squandering of
 
 236 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 property. It would leave Vanderbilt with 
 only fifty shares, not enough for a controlling 
 interest if all the other stockholders ever 
 united against him. " Besides," said I, " I 
 shall not be penniless all my life. Mr. Stuart 
 here has willed me his entire interest in the 
 Toto. If I should survive him, there is four 
 million dollars' worth " 
 
 "What!" exclaimed Vanderbilt. "Am I to 
 be outdone by one less able ? I will be 
 sweeter to you than the sugar refiner. I 
 present you five million dollars' worth this 
 day. I " 
 
 " Halt, Mr. Vanderbilt. Before you go 
 higher still, I accept your noble present, lest 
 you give your whole fortune away. I am 
 eternally obliged. Please imagine me ever- 
 lastingly thanking you for your generous im- 
 pulse. It shall not be in vain. Circum- 
 stances have taught me the full value of 
 money, and the highest use of it. The in-
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 237 
 
 come of those five millions will be well ap- 
 propriated, you may depend upon it. Your 
 unparallelled " 
 
 " Enough ! enough !" cried Vanderbilt "It 
 seems to me I see our friend John B. Gough 
 among us. As we are travelling by water, 
 I am sure we shall all be delighted to hear 
 remarks from a wet water man, upon water 
 in general and water in particular." 
 
 Mr. Gough responded : 
 
 " Nothing inspires a man like cold water 
 on a cold morning. It's a fatal mistake to 
 drink anything else. I never drink anything 
 else except by mistake. In the exhilaration 
 prevailing among these thiity-six hundred 
 persons feeding their tape-worms together, 
 no wonder some errors are committed. I 
 see a cold water man has taken wine by 
 mistake, and feels bigger than a Toto. If he 
 makes the same mistake repeatedly, he will 
 wind up with the grave error of rolling un-
 
 238 MR, GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 der the table. When a man drinks dry 
 Sillery wine instead of wet water, he drinks 
 contamination to his soul ! The past forty 
 years I've drunk water continually. I have 
 travelled widely, and always on water. I 
 mean as a beverage. In the other regard, 
 water has been too strong to suit my 
 stomach. On land my stomach travelled 
 comfortably, on water uncomfortably ; and 
 there is more water than land. I shall never 
 cease to forget how I staggered over the 
 water the first time I went across, to enjoy 
 life in London. But now we're travelling 
 like a duck ! A big duck. The Toto has 
 dignity. It takes to the ocean like a duck 
 to a pond, and preserves its stateliness like a 
 swan. Governor Swan of Maryland, will 
 you have the goodness to favor us with a 
 pantomime ?" 
 
 Gov. Swan replied with gesticulations until 
 his voice came up, when all heard and were
 
 MR. GHIAPS DREAM. 239 
 
 fascinated. When he was fairly under way, 
 he took occasion to retort upon Gough with 
 a piece of pleasantry, but Gough had vanished. 
 He had not rolled under the table. He was 
 not on board the Toto. But Helen Potter 
 was. She had personated Gough as well as 
 he could personate himself. 
 
 Had this banquet been a small affair, only 
 one sex would have been privileged to enjoy 
 it. But the event it commemorated was 
 great, and all the proceedings it inspired 
 were comprehensive. The Toto was broad ; 
 no small or one-sided celebration would have 
 honored it. 
 
 Here were female thinkers and writers of 
 weight. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe irradiated 
 this banquet hall with her bright presence, 
 and let fall impressive words when her turn 
 came. Other profound speakers of her gender 
 moved us likewise with their deep utterances ; 
 and more of her sex were here to devour
 
 240 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 truffles and speeches, and allow their own 
 sweet voices to be heard in chat. 
 
 Judge Bingham of Ohio was present, 
 crammed with materials for a ready-made 
 speech. He was called upon. Commencing 
 in moderate style, as usual, growing warmer 
 and fiercer, as usual, he became impetuous 
 and furious, he gesticulated with irresistible 
 force, he cracked the table with his knocks, 
 he would have levelled an oak at every 
 thrust, he projected thunderbolts faster and 
 faster, he fixed his eyes on imaginary foes, 
 he glared unutterable defiance over his eagle 
 beak, and swept like a hurricane to his 
 conclusion, winding up as follows : 
 
 " Fancy a far-away observer of the earth, 
 another astronomical Proctor, standing now 
 on the star Sirius, seventy-five millions of 
 millions of miles from Boston. He has been 
 looking off into the realms of ether, to pene- 
 trate as far as instruments can fathom the
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 241 
 
 mighty mass of yet unmeasured substance 
 which infinite space contains. His reason 
 tells him that all matter has its limits, al- 
 though his furthest measurements of the 
 whole are vain. The lengthening reaches of 
 his straining vision through his telescopes are 
 futile, and he draws in now within the scope 
 of easy observation, and looks upon the earth. 
 
 His scrutiny of orbs that roll in legions upon 
 
 
 
 legions within the radius of octillions of non- 
 illions of miles swept by his colossal glass for 
 the daily news of the world, his discoveries of 
 the great achievements wrought upon every 
 inhabited globe in the whole domain he scans, 
 his study of the vast works of the Creator's 
 creatures carrying forward the work of crea- 
 tion, fill his mind each day with a still more 
 sublime conception of the possibilities of prog- 
 ress, and he contemplates the future of the 
 universe with an expansion of soul which is 
 inspiring until he turns his telescope to view
 
 242 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 the earth, and then he bursts out laughing. 
 He always laughs when he looks upon the 
 curious little globe called the earth, and thinks 
 of the ludricrous incongruities he perceives 
 there ; the people suffering all manner of evils 
 and not using means to remedy their troubles, 
 not even seeming to know that their difficul- 
 ties can be remedied. It convulses him with 
 mirth every time he turns his ten-mile tele- 
 scope from its grand review of the doings of 
 numberless gigantic and densely populated 
 globes massed before his telescope as he sweeps 
 the boundless depths of abysmal space to 
 take in even that infinitesimal fraction of the 
 remote star multitudes comprising the world 
 to cover the earth with his glass and see 
 human beings strenuously insisting that the 
 welfare of the world depends upon the dem- 
 ocratic party coming into power! and other 
 human beings crazy over the idea that the 
 world will go to wreck and ruin if the repub-
 
 MR. GHUrS DREAM, 243 
 
 lican party does not continue to hold the 
 helm ! He thinks of the world, of the im- 
 mense regions of populous globes through 
 which his vision has been roaming to the 
 extent of his powerful glass, and now as he 
 covers the earth with one eye he looks at the 
 rolling seas with their twenty thousand toss- 
 ing chips called ships, and he grins with 
 irresistible fervor as he contemplates these 
 millions and millions of human beings 
 with their millions and millions of dollars, 
 and their millions and millions of horse 
 powers connected with almost every con- 
 ceivable form and variety of machinery 
 to assist them in great works, and yet no 
 great works accomplished in this department 
 of human activity. Floating out upon those 
 bobbing and swaying and lurching and 
 pitching and rolling little things that were 
 built to traverse oceans with the hope of 
 their living through the ordeal, he sees them
 
 244 MR. GJffM'S DREAM. 
 
 sometimes getting across, and sometimes 
 getting in and going down thousands and 
 thousands of healthy people every year 
 gulped down by old Neptune, and yet their 
 survivors never seem to think of improving 
 on such a wholesale method of human 
 slaughter oh, it is too, too funny ! and he 
 laughs and laughs at such ridiculous doings 
 until he can catch his breath and say ' Ah, 
 Proctor, you are teaching the people lessons 
 of distance, but when will they apply them ? 
 You have expanded their minds by telling 
 them how many millions of millions of miles 
 they would have to walk to reach the nearest 
 fixed star, as there is no safe conveyance in 
 that direction ; but when will they learn that 
 there is no safe conveyance across their own 
 water, and that a really safe one would only 
 need to be one fifty-four millionth of a mil- 
 lionth of the length of the distance between 
 them and the very nearest star!' Again
 
 MR. GHIATS DREAM. 245 
 
 imagine that far-away observer, our gifted 
 Proctor's astronomical cousin, seventy-five 
 million million times removed, lifting his 
 ten-mile glass once more to that little speck 
 of the world called the earth, which has 
 always been of such tremendous importance 
 in the cosmic plan that it has for ages 
 maintained its position in the very centre of 
 the universe, graciously allowing the vast 
 wheel called the Milky Way to revolve 
 around it imagine that looker-on raising his 
 glass in a smiling mood to see if the people 
 of earth continue as short-sighted as ever, 
 that he may have another good laugh with 
 his Sirius companions as he tells them how 
 the folks in the middle of the universe are 
 doing their best to stir up political tempests 
 over absolute trifles, how they are going 
 stark mad in every civilized country so fast 
 that thousands have to be penned up; how 
 the people in general are possessed with an
 
 246 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 insane desire for gaudy appearances, regard- 
 less of convenience or comfort or health or 
 peace of mind or anything else that is 
 wholesome and useful ; how they fill them- 
 selves with the rankest of stinking fluids in 
 order that their nerves may be wrought up 
 to such a pitch of excitement that they will 
 enjoy a hundred years of life to-day lest 
 they die to-morrow; how they put all 
 their force into dazzling displays of tran- 
 sient strength, and are growing incapable 
 of steady and long-continued exercise of 
 power, whether personal or governmental ; 
 how they have grown to such numbers and 
 yet have not .increased the knowledge of 
 their own united strength to its real limits ; 
 how they have always tried their wretched 
 best to be content with gilded misery in 
 their travels on the ocean; how they devote 
 their attention to innumerable quick little 
 efforts at building bobbing baubles of ships,
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 247 
 
 instead of broadly and serenely and surely 
 combining and putting together a structure 
 of sterling strength and steady usefulness; 
 how they are always going through a host of 
 other just as laughable little antics for the 
 amusement of observers in the heavens; how 
 he has refrained from glancing at the earth 
 for a year or two, as he has been too busy 
 in studying the grand achievements of other 
 orbs, and he never did discover anything on 
 earth of importance commensurate with its 
 people's capabilities of progress ; how he 
 feels a touch of dyspepsia after his grave 
 labors in grander fields, and will now take a 
 laugh for the good of his health by turning 
 his telescope toward the earth, and shaking 
 up his torpid liver over the comic attempts 
 of those queer folk, who are always tugging 
 to make progress in opposite directions at 
 the same time ; how he surmises that the 
 earth was made for the purpose of amusing
 
 248 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 the rest of creation by its people's frenzied 
 efforts to be happy ; how appropriate that 
 Boston was located on the earth, to spread 
 ideas of breadth and freedom and progress 
 among the inhabitants of a globe of such 
 importance, and keep the narrow minds of 
 earth's people from collapsing altogether ; 
 how an observer from Sirius cannot but 
 smile at the people of earth for regarding 
 all the immense orbs in space as their little 
 stars, and alluding to one which is 150,000,- 
 ooo times the size of the earth as their star 
 Sirius ; how remarkable it is that the cos- 
 mographic plan of the universe is such that 
 the earth is the nucleus of creation, and the 
 cosmogony of the entire immeasurable 
 amount has its beginning and ending upon 
 that atom of the whole, by which its people 
 are highly favored, republicans as well as 
 democrats; how strange it is that the in- 
 habitants of a globe of such importance have
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 249 
 
 been so long at the mercy of their own sea, 
 when they could journey over it in absolute 
 security if they would navigate it in the 
 right way, with vehicles of the right form 
 and size ; how those comically bobbing 
 things called ships will stir up his risibilities 
 now after he has not seen them for a year or 
 two, or anything else quite so ridiculous ; how 
 he will now what ! he sees on the Atlantic 
 Ocean at last the very thing they have 
 always needed a steady and safe and ad- 
 mirable structure the Toto! Earth is im- 
 proving. Man is progressing. Four cheers 
 for the author of the Toto I" 
 
 Another impetuous orator, General Joseph 
 R. Hawley, who stood at the head of the 
 vast Centennial enterprise, and had thrown 
 his whole soul into this vast enterprise also, 
 was afforded the opportunity to pour out his 
 pent up flood of enthusiasm. The mention 
 of his name in connection with the word
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Centennial brought him to his feet with a 
 jump and a declamation : 
 
 "Centennial! That magic word united 
 forty million minds on one great thought, 
 and drew the enterprising thousands from all 
 lands. They came to view a nation that had 
 risen in a hundred years unto colossal 
 strength, a nation that has proved itself a 
 prodigy among its rivals; and they came to 
 learn the secret of its wonderful prosperty. 
 No other nation upon earth has thriven in 
 the same proportion; and what has been the 
 means of its magnificent and sumptuous 
 success? This country's greatest measure of 
 success is due to inventors. Their inspiration 
 caused its rapid rise ; their inspiration is lift- 
 ing it apace; their inspiration has carried it 
 already up to such a height of practical 
 achievement that politicians grovelling below 
 are bewildered and lost in their endeavors to 
 comprehend the situation. Politicians are
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 251 
 
 behind the times, and are groping in shadows. 
 Invention is the spirit of the age ! before 
 whose solid works, and under whose more 
 potent and enduring influence, all petty con- 
 troversies upon special modes of government 
 are passing away, as the morning remnants 
 of a fevered dream are swept into oblivion at 
 the rising of the sun in his usefulness and 
 greatness and progress! Political animosities 
 fade, and die, and are forgotten. Invention 
 lives ! and grows ! and in its massive embodi- 
 ments of progress it looks on down upon 
 the ages as they come, plainly discernible, 
 unmistakable, tangible, while the constant 
 political fret, and the periodical tempests over 
 paltry details of human administration sink 
 into their forever dwindling importance. In- 
 vention soars above the plane of ephemeral 
 partisan thought ; out of its very castles in 
 the air it builds substantial abodes for the 
 better accommodation of man; up to these
 
 252 MR. GJffM'S DREAM. 
 
 created improvements the genius of invention 
 lifts the human race ! Invention alone has 
 builded Civilization, the entire superstructure 
 and every detail within it. In a hundred 
 years what marvels were added ! Another 
 hundred years began. What are to be its 
 issues ? Out of this cycle of a hundred years 
 will arise undoubtedly some stupendous 
 works to illumine the pages of its history, 
 to aid the promotion of human advancement 
 to the end. What shall they be ? The 
 answer slumbers in minds unborn, with inter- 
 vening generations to rear impressive splen- 
 dors upon the foundation of the past. When 
 the hundred years now begun shall have 
 rolled away, and again America looks 
 proudly back, what happier reminiscence then 
 can arise than that this advancing nation 
 signalized the beginning of its new centennial 
 period by the beginning of a new enterprise 
 by which it stepped forth suddenly one
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 253 
 
 sweeping stride beyond all other nations! 
 that the Totos dotting every ocean had their 
 commencement in the plan of 1877, tne fi rst 
 year of our new one hundred years !" 
 
 He proceeded. He was followed by John 
 L. Swift, John Wetherbee, and other men of 
 enthusiasm, some of them witty fulminators 
 of trifles, yet all earnest believers in progress. 
 
 This great occasion of feasting passed 
 through its stately stages to its close. It was 
 no symposium, but an orderly banquet of 
 clear-headed, far-seeing men and women, pro- 
 foundly impressed by the fact that a record of 
 this event would glow in after ages upon one 
 of the brilliant leaves of history. 
 
 Weariness at last fell upon all. Sleep com- 
 plained of neglect, and would not be put off 
 longer. The lateness of the hour, too, con- 
 spired with the imagination to lay a heavy 
 hand on these tired bodies, and put out their 
 lights for renewal. It was time. The night
 
 254 MR. GHIM^S DREAM. 
 
 was wholly gone; the gas was becoming 
 feeble ; the sun of a new day had swept across 
 the ocean, and was casting his early nays 
 through eastern windows, dimming all lights 
 that were lesser, subduing the brilliance of 
 nocturnal display, and smothering the intense 
 animation which all night long had attended 
 the moonlight vigils without and the banquet- 
 ing within. It was ended, and thirty-six 
 hundred persons dragged themselves away to 
 their beds, to sleep a day and a night. 
 
 Before I retired to rest, I travelled up to 
 the top of the Toto's tower once more, to 
 take one last fond look around upon the giant 
 I had brought into being; and I' felt a resist- 
 less exaltation of pride, and a pardonable 
 thrill of vanity, in view of the broad measure 
 of usefulness which the great work embodied, 
 and the limitless ramifications of its influence 
 for good upon industries in every civilized 
 nation.
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 255 
 
 Descending from the tower in deep 
 thought, and moving whithersoever the im- 
 pulse of the moment led me, I soon found 
 myself again in that fascinating spot at the 
 extreme edge of the Toto forward, my hand 
 upon the railing on the rim, and looking 
 steadfastly down from this firm resting-place, 
 to view the :mad waters in their everlasting 
 rise and .fall,. How many minutes or hours 
 I remained over this enchaining spectacle I 
 know not, but I drew myself away at: last, 
 with a lingering look of triumph at the mon- 
 ster I had subdued, and a smile. of derisidn 
 at his impotence :in rolling volumes of inert 
 matter toward me and my hundred thousand 
 people. .Let Neptune act his fiercest, a 
 leviathan of my own fashioning was ever suc- 
 cessfully contending with him, pressing him 
 back, pressing ever majestically forward. 
 
 I retired at last to my room and my 
 couch, and fell into my deepest slumber.
 
 256 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 
 
 Oh, what a sleep ! Oh, what an awaken- 
 ing ! Did I arise inspired with a proud recol- 
 lection of that great day and night's ex- 
 perience? I arose to a disenchantment of it 
 all. The whole was a dream. There had 
 been no procession, no dedication, no twins, 
 no banquet. There was no grand Voorhees 
 Hotel upon the Toto. Alas ! there was 
 no Toto. There was nothing but a dream. 
 Was there a condition of hard times oppress- 
 ing the people ? Surely, that notion must 
 have been a dream ; for why would a great 
 nation of intelligent people allow it? With 
 the benefits of modern appliances, the stores 
 of accumulated knowledge, the development 
 of intellect in the heightening advance of 
 civilization, why would they as a nation not 
 the poor alone, but all suddenly become 
 bewildered, cease to progress, fail to render 
 their vast accumulations profitable, and suffer 
 hard times? Would a Congress and a
 
 MR. GHIM'S DREAM. 257 
 
 people narrow their gaze to a scrutiny of 
 trivial objects, and let the gigantic cause of a 
 difficulty stand before them so large as to be 
 unnoticed? Then there might be hard times. 
 But that is incredible. Could there be a 
 Congress and a people suffering and not 
 tracing their misfortune to its source ? Labor- 
 saving inventions, in vast numbers, work vast 
 changes in industry, enabling us to accomplish 
 results which in former times would be simply 
 astounding. It would be a mythical Congress 
 and a mythical people who would overlook 
 the sweeping drift of invention ; or see it and 
 deny its logical and inevitable tendency ; re- 
 fuse to adapt themselves to it, and accomplish 
 what they might ; pass by a fact of such trans- 
 cendent importance, and glare at something 
 petty ; attribute to dollars instead of machines 
 a diminution of manual employment ; deplore 
 the number of tramps, yet reduce the number 
 of government employees; abandon public
 
 258 MR. GHIM'S DREAM* 
 
 works while private enterprise flags, .dis- 
 couraged by the lack of government enter- 
 prise ; endeavor to save a few dollars to the 
 treasury while millions are yearly lost in the 
 idleness fostered by that policy ! An intelli- 
 gent nation would not do that, for that would 
 create hard times. So there are no hard times ; 
 it must be a dream. 
 
 THE END.
 
 1878 
 
 1878. 
 
 AND NEW EDITIONS, 
 
 RECENTLY ISSUED BY 
 
 Gr. W.CARLETON& Co., Publishers, 
 
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 3,15. -EDNA BROWNING. 
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 Thrives whkh arc common among men and women of every day existence. Mrs. 
 Holmes is very happy in portraying domestic life. Old and young peruse her 
 -tcries with great delight, for she writes in a style that all can comprehend." 
 Mew York Weekly. 
 
 "Mrs. Holmes stories are all of a domestic character, and their interest, 
 therefore, is not so intense as if they were more highly seasoned with sensational- 
 ism, but it is f fa healthy and abiding character. Almost any new book which her 
 publisher might choose to announce from her pen would get an immediate and 
 general reading. The interest in her tales begins at once, and is maintained to 
 the close. Her sentiments are so sound, her sympathies so warm and ready, 
 an-! her knowledge of manners, character, and the varied incidents of ordinary 
 lite is so thorough, that she would find it difficult to write any other than an 
 excellent tale if she were to try it" Bottom Banner. 
 
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 sympathetic tone, a perception of character, and a familial, attractive style, 
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 itrrrican readers for whom fashionable novels and ideal fantasies have no 
 -karm." Htttry T. Tuckerman. 
 
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 uaywhqa, and sent by mail, jottage free, on receipt of prire [f 1.30 each]. I-} 
 
 Q. W CARLETON ft CO., Publisher^ 
 
 Madison Square^ New Ytrk.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS' WORKS. 
 
 A New Edition. 
 
 .Among the many editions of the works of this greatest tf 
 fcnglish Novelists, there has not been until now one that entirely 
 satisfies the public demand, Without exception, they each have 
 some strong distinctive objection, either the form and dimensions 
 of the volumes are unhandy or, the type is small and indistinct 
 or, the illustrations are unsatisfactory or, the binding is poor or, 
 the price ts too high. 
 
 An entirely new edition is now, however, published by G. W. 
 Carleton & Co. of New York, which, it is believed, will, in every 
 respect, completely satisfy the popular demand. It is known as 
 
 "Carleton' New Illutrated Edition." 
 
 COMPLETE IN 15 VOLUMES. 
 
 The size and form is most convenient for holding, the type fa 
 entirely new, and of a cleat and open character that has received the 
 approval of the reading community in other popular works. 
 
 The illustrations are by the original artists chosen ly Charles 
 Dickens himself and the paper, printing, and binding are of an 
 attractive and substantial character. 
 
 This beautiful new edition is complete in 15 volumes at the 
 extremely reasonable price of $1.50 per volume, as follows : 
 
 I. PICKWICK PAPERS AND CATALOGUE. 
 
 2. OLIVER TWIST. UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER. 
 
 3. DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 4. GREAT EXPECTATIONS. ITALY AND AMERICA. 
 
 5. DOMBEY AND SON. 
 
 6. BARNABY RUDGE AND EDWIN DROOD. 
 
 7. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 8. CURIOSITY SHOP AND MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 9. BLEAK HOUSE. 
 IO. LITTLE DORRIT. 
 II. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 
 12. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 
 13. CHRISTMAS BOOKS. TALE OF TWC CITIES. 
 
 4. SKETCHES BY WOZ AND HARD TIMES. 
 15. CHILD'S ENGLAND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 The first volume Pickwick Papers contains an alphabetical 
 catalogue of all of Charles Dickens' writings, with their psitioas 
 in the volumes. 
 
 This edition is sold by Booksellers, everywhere and single speci- 
 men copies will be forwarded by mail, postage free, on receipt of 
 price, $1.50, by 
 
 G. W, CARLETON & CO,, Publishers, 
 
 Madison Square, New York.